Please forgive me if this is not the place to ask this question ... I'm new to TeX.
I have a LaTeX 'hack' for reformatting section titles to place them in the left margin of the page. I am told, however, that the redefinition of primitives is deprecated --------- snip --------------- \makeatletter \def\@seccntformat#1{\protect\makebox[0pt][r]{\csname the#1\endcsname\quad}} \makeatother --------------------------------- I have been defeated in my attempts to find an alternative means of doing this - even after hours spent with Kopka and Daly's excellent "Guide to LaTeX" which appears to use some such trick itself. There is no reference in that book to the keyword '\csname' , for example, much less to the function \makeatletter. The 'hack' seems to work well: so I don't really need to abandon it. But I'd be grateful if someone could point me to a more intelligent way to do this. PS: I notice that Thomas Esser participates in this list. If you read this, Thomas, thank you very much for TeTeX. As I learn more about LaTeX I realize that TeTeX is a wonderful piece of work and I'm very grateful to you for it (and to Gerben Wierda for his Mac OS X version). Peter Gallagher Inquit Pty Ltd [t] +61 3 9654 7670 [f] +61 3 9654 7970 www.inquit.com DISCLAIMER: This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential and privileged. If you receive this message in error please notify the originator and delete the message. This email is subject to copyright. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the material in this e-mail is strictly forbidden without the written consent of the copyright owner.