Counters in LaTex

The following is a summary of counter usage and manipulations available in LaTex.

The following commands have a counter associated with it:

• part
• chapter
• section
• subsection
• subsubsection
• paragraph
• subparagraph
• page
• equation
• figure
• table
• footnote
• mpfootnote
• enumi
• enumii
• enumiii
• enumiv

You have several possibilities to manipulate counters in LaTex:

• \addtocounter {counter} {value} increments the specified counter by the value.
• \newcounter {newcounter} [oldcounter] defines a new counter. Option ‘oldcounter’ is to link ‘newcounter’ to ‘oldcounter’.
• \setcounter {counter} {value} sets the counter to have the specified value.
• \usecounter{counter} used as the second argument of the list environment to number list items (see list command).
• \value {counter} produces the value of the counter and is useful for doing arithmetic with counters.
• \renewcommand {cmd} [args] [opt] {def} general command to define/redefine new commands.

Counter values can be printed in different formats such as:

• \alph or \Alph {counter} for letters (a…z or A…Z) .
• \arabic {counter} for arabic numbers (1…9).
• \fnsymbol {counter} printing various symbols: asterisk, dagger, double dagger, section mark, paragraph mark, double vertical lines, double asterisk, double daggers, double double daggers. The value of counters must be between 1 and 9.
• \roman or \Roman {counter} for roman numerals (I,II,III,IV,V,…,X,etc.)