How do I prevent "Contents" from appearing twice in the header when I use \leftmark and \rightmark with fancyhdr?

Question

I would like to use \leftmark and \rightmark, but have "Contents" appear only once (on the left) in the header. Instead, it appears as both the \leftmark and the \rightmark.

The following MWE illustrates the problem:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\lhead{\leftmark}
\rhead{\rightmark}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\end{document}

If you have at least one \section command in the same page of your ToC, the problem disappears. — Gonzalo Medina, Mar 18 '12 at 00:04
@Gonzalo Medina Yes. Unfortunately the ToC takes up a full page. — Will, Mar 18 '12 at 00:15

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 18 '12 at 00:08

8

Change the definition of \tableofcontents.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\lhead{\leftmark}
\rhead{\rightmark}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand\tableofcontents{%
    \section*{\contentsname
        \@mkboth{%
%           \MakeUppercase\contentsname}{\MakeUppercase\contentsname}}% DELETED
           \MakeUppercase\contentsname}{}}% ADDED
    \@starttoc{toc}%
    } 
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\end{document}

answered Mar 18 '12 at 00:08

lockstep

250,273

Perfect, thank you. How would I make it appear only on the right? – Will Mar 18 '12 at 00:14
@Will By removing the first \MakeUppercase\contentsname from the definition instead of the second one. – lockstep Mar 18 '12 at 00:21
1

@Will Note, however, that \tableofcontents is considered a section in the article class, and therefore should change \leftmark. Wether it should change \rightmark too is more debatable. – lockstep Mar 18 '12 at 00:25

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 18 '12 at 00:24

8

The user guide to the fancyhdr package notes on p. 10 that

It should be noted that the LATEX marking mechanism works fine with chapters (which always start on a new page) and sections which are reasonably long. It does not work quite as well with short sections and subsections. This is a problem with LATEX, not with fancyhdr.

AFAICT, an easy workaround, which doesn't require the redefinition of LaTeX's \tableofcontents command, consists of specifying \rhead{} before the \tableofcontents command, followed by \rhead{\rightmark} before the first section:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\lhead{\leftmark}
\begin{document}
\rhead{}   % set \rhead to empty
\tableofcontents

\clearpage   % OP has indicated that ToC spans a full page
\rhead{\rightmark} % reset \rhead to \rightmark

\section{Hello}
\end{document}

answered Mar 18 '12 at 00:24

Mico

506,678

I prefer customization in the preamble, but +1 for the fancyhdr quote. – lockstep Mar 18 '12 at 00:27
Is there a way to handle this for the book class? The markings would then need to alternate with even/odd pages. – rubenvb Jan 29 '15 at 16:06
@rubenvb - May I suggest that you pose this query as a new question? That way, it'll get far more visibility. :-) – Mico Jan 29 '15 at 16:13
@Mico will do :-) – rubenvb Jan 29 '15 at 16:18

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 18 '12 at 11:44

\rightmark uses the first right mark of the page. So you can also set before \tableofcontents an empty \markright to get rid of the right mark on the first page and use an addtocontents to insert a \markright in the toc to get rid of the right mark on the following pages:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\lhead{\leftmark}
\rhead{\rightmark}
\begin{document}
\markright{}
\tableofcontents
\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\markright{}}
%some text in the toc for test:
\addtocontents{toc}{blub}
\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\newpage}
\addtocontents{toc}{blub}

\end{document}

Btw: You are not saying which informations \leftmark and \rightmark will contain. You should be aware that some combinations (e.g. section/subsection) can led to confusing results. As a thumb of rule the \leftmark should be connected to something that starts a new page, like a \part or a \chapter.

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 19 '21 at 13:00

0

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}

\begin{document}

\rhead[]{Contents}

\lhead[Contents]{}

\tableofcontents

\markboth{}{\rm Contents}

\end{document}

edited Sep 19 '21 at 13:00

Mensch

65,388

answered Sep 19 '21 at 12:54

MiR UmaR

1

I think this is the most simple way to deal with such problem. Thanks – MiR UmaR Sep 19 '21 at 12:55
Who are you thanking to? – José Carlos Santos Sep 19 '21 at 13:29

How do I prevent "Contents" from appearing twice in the header when I use \leftmark and \rightmark with fancyhdr?

4 Answers4

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