Fancy chapter heading with tikz

Posted on 2011-09-01 14:04:14
by Geert Vandeweyer

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Fancy chapter heading with tikz

Posted on 2011-09-01 14:04:14
by Geert Vandeweyer

The tikz package allows the chapter headings to be adapted without limitations. As I didn't like the default, nor the options from the fancychap package, I created my own chapter heading based on an example by Kottwitz. I adapted his design to be better suited for black and white printing, and added the title to the main bar. I also moved the chapter indication around a bit. If you add the code below to the preamble, you can simply use the \chapter commands to get chapter headings as seen in the image below. 

Needed code in the preamble

% load packages
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage[explicit]{titlesec}

%define colors
\definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.95}
\definecolor{darkgray}{gray}{0.5}

%define header image
\newcommand*\chapterlabel{}
\titleformat{\chapter}
  {\gdef\chapterlabel{}
   \normalfont\sffamily\Large\bfseries\scshape}
  {\gdef\chapterlabel{\thechapter\ }}{0pt}
  % begin the main image, shifted 5cm down from top
  {\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
    % add grey filled bar, 4cm high, full page wide.
    \node[yshift=-5cm] at (current page.north west)
      {\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture, overlay]
        \draw[fill=darkgray] (0,0) rectangle
          (\paperwidth,4cm);
	;
        % add the title, shifted to be centered in bar
	\node[anchor=east,yshift=2cm,xshift=0.9\paperwidth, text width=1.05\textwidth]{\color{lightgray}\nohyphens{\huge{#1}}} ;
        % add rounded rectangle on top right, contains chapter number
	\node[draw, anchor=east,yshift=4cm,xshift=0.98\paperwidth,rectangle,
              rounded corners=10pt,inner sep=6pt,
              fill=lightgray]
              {\color{darkgray}Chapter \chapterlabel};
       \end{tikzpicture}
      };
   \end{tikzpicture}
  }
%adjust spacing for correct alignment of following text
\titlespacing*{\chapter}{0pt}{50pt}{-10pt}

Example Output

fancy, LaTeX, preamble, tikz