Document Classes ⇒ "Scene change" within a chapter

[dr8086]

Hello all!

I'm using LaTeX to compile a book into a lovely pdf.
Within chapters I sometimes have scene changes, like a break in the action or a change of . What I see in books I've read is basically a large vertical space with some small character like an asterisk in the middle. I'll try to recreate the effect I'm after below.

Code: Select all

text text text text text text text text text text 
text text text text text text text text text text 



                       *


text text text text text text text text text text 
text text text text text text text text text text 

I've tried using the \section command, but this isn't really what I'm looking for.
I could probably recreate the effect using a combination of commands for other purposes, but if there's a proper LaTeX way to do it I'm sure it would look much better.
Many thanks all!

[Stefan Kottwitz]

The proper LaTeX way, besides using a dedicated package if existing, is to define a macro for this. You can change the macro any time you want, and the whole document will be updated.

Here, you could use \hfill before and after the symbol, so it would be centered. You could add paragraph breaks and vertical space, if you like.

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\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{pifont}
\newcommand{\decoline}{%
  \par
  \vspace{\baselineskip}
  \hfill
  \ding{100}
  \hfill
  \vspace{\baselineskip}
\par}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\decoline
\lipsum[2]
\decoline
\lipsum[3]
\end{document}

decorations.png (48.42 KiB) Viewed 5482 times

There are packages and fonts with nice decorations, if you don't want to use just \star or \ast or a \ding symbol.

Stefan

[nlct]

I don't know what class you are using, but memoir provides some commands to do this. The most convenient is \pfbreak which just puts a gap if the scene break occurs in the middle of the page, but puts a symbol (such as an asterisk) if the scene break occurs near the page boundary (where it's harder to see). The symbol and the size of the gap can be customized if the default doesn't suit you.

Regards
Nicola Talbot

[dr8086]

Apologies for the late reply.
Defining the Macro worked great, many thanks!
I'm using the book class, which I think I shall stick with rather than switching to memoir.
Cheers