Switch off section numbering only in a certain chapter #454

rweickelt · 2026-02-11T09:01:43Z

rweickelt
Feb 11, 2026

I want to turn off numbering in all sections within a specific chapter:

.. _document-history:

Document History
================

Section without number A
------------------------

blabla

...

I am having a hard time to understand matchers in the style sheet. I tried:

# level 2 headers in all chapters are customized
[heading level 2]
page_break = any

# level 2 header customizations specific to this chapter 
[heading level 2 : Section(id='document-history') / Section]
number_format = none
page_break = none

But this does not work.

Answered by brechtm

Feb 14, 2026

This is form memory, so I hope this works..

You need to select the Heading inside the Section and give the style a unique name. You probably also want this style to inherit from the generic level 2 heading style you defined:

# level 2 header customizations specific to this chapter 
[document history heading level 2 : Section(id='document-history') / Section / Heading]
base = heading level 2
number_format = none
page_break = none

The style log can help you build the correct selector. This example shows that a heading is a Heading node which is a direct child of a Section node.

        ...
        Section(id='subsection-x')   /Users/brechtm/Documents/Code/rinohtype/tests_regression/rst/sect…

View full answer

brechtm · 2026-02-14T23:23:37Z

brechtm
Feb 14, 2026
Maintainer

This is form memory, so I hope this works..

You need to select the Heading inside the Section and give the style a unique name. You probably also want this style to inherit from the generic level 2 heading style you defined:

# level 2 header customizations specific to this chapter 
[document history heading level 2 : Section(id='document-history') / Section / Heading]
base = heading level 2
number_format = none
page_break = none

The style log can help you build the correct selector. This example shows that a heading is a Heading node which is a direct child of a Section node.

        ...
        Section(id='subsection-x')   /Users/brechtm/Documents/Code/rinohtype/tests_regression/rst/section_custom_label.rst:20 <section>
          Heading('2A.1 Subsection X')   /Users/brechtm/Documents/Code/rinohtype/tests_regression/rst/section_custom_label.rst:20 <title>
               > (0,0,0,1,2) heading level 2
                 (0,0,0,0,2) other heading levels

1 reply

rweickelt Feb 18, 2026
Author

Thanks. The style log was good hint. For a reason I don't understand, .. _document-history: in the document ends up as %9_document-history#document-history in the style log. 9_document-history is the name of the .rst file btw. Using that as id in the stylesheet config works.

I also tried to use .. rst-class:: instead, but in the style log this ends up as:

          (continued) Section(id='%9_document-history#document-history')   9_document-history.rst:6   <section classes='testclass'>

and I have absolutely no idea how to match that.

brechtm · 2026-02-19T10:13:13Z

brechtm
Feb 19, 2026
Maintainer

For a reason I don't understand, .. _document-history: in the document ends up as %9_document-history#document-history in the style log. 9_document-history is the name of the .rst file btw.

Hmm, this was quite surprising to me, so I looked into it. Sphinx assigns multiple IDs to sections: %<document name>#<section name> and then other explicitly assigned IDs. Of course it's the latter you typically want to use. rinohtype only shows the first one in the style log, and id in the selector only matches on the primary ID. I rediscovered that you can also use the has_id argument in a selector, which matches any of the IDs set. Unfortunately, documentation is quite incomplete and does not mention this. Can you try that?

It would be better if id would take over the functionality of has_id and the style log would list all of the IDs for document elements. The style log is functional, but it's pretty basic at the moment. I would like to output it as an interactive tree in HTML and possibly store more data.

I also tried to use .. rst-class:: instead [...] and I have absolutely no idea how to match that.

This is also not yet covered in the documentation. You can match on classes using has_class and has_classes. For example:

[document history heading level 2 : Section(has_class='testclass') / Section / Heading]
...

[document history heading level 2 alt : Section(has_classes=['testclass', 'anotherclass']) / Section / Heading]
...

1 reply

rweickelt Feb 20, 2026
Author

Hmm, this was quite surprising to me, so I looked into it. Sphinx assigns multiple IDs to sections: %#
and then other explicitly assigned IDs. Of course it's the latter you typically want to use. rinohtype only shows the first one in the style log, and id in the selector only matches on the primary ID. I rediscovered that you can also use the has_id argument in a selector, which matches any of the IDs set. Unfortunately, documentation is quite incomplete and does not mention this. Can you try that?

Thanks. I tried and ran rinohtype with the debugger, but the document-history label I set before the chapter never appears as an id or secondary id.

This is also not yet covered in the documentation. You can match on classes using has_class and has_classes. For example:

Nice. That worked. The class approach is probably better suited for semantic tagging of elements. And it's also more in line with the LaTeX renderer which also uses the rst-class directive for these kind of hints.

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Switch off section numbering only in a certain chapter #454

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