Two book examples

The following definitions give an approximation of the style used in L. Lamport's book.

Lamport's header overhangs the outside margin. This is done as follows.

The width of headers and footers is \headwidth, which by default equals the width of the text: \textwidth. You can make the width wider (or narrower) by redefining \headwidth with the \setlength and \addtolength commands. To overhang the outside margin where the marginal notes are printed, add both \marginparsep and \marginparwidth to \headwidth with the commands:

\addtolength{\headwidth}{\marginparsep}
\addtolength{\headwidth}{\marginparwidth}

You must issue these commands after the first \pagestyle{fancy} or \pagestyle{fancyplain} command as this will establish the default for \headwidth.

And now a complete definition of Lamport's book style:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{fancyheadings}
\pagestyle{fancyplain}
\addtolength{\headwidth}{\marginparsep}
\addtolength{\headwidth}{\marginparwidth}
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{\markboth{#1}{}}
\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]{\markright{\thesection\ #1}}
\lhead[\fancyplain{}{\bfseries\thepage}]
   {\fancyplain{}{\bfseries\rightmark}}
\rhead[\fancyplain{}{\bfseries\leftmark}]
   {\fancyplain{}{\bfseries\thepage}}
\cfoot{}

Notice that the \chaptermark and \sectionmark commands have been redefined to eliminate the chapter numbers and the uppercaseness.

For the second example, we take the / book.

Chapter pages have no headers or footers. So we declare

\thispagestyle{empty}

for every chapter page, and we do not need fancyplain.

Chapter and section titles appear in the form: 2. DO IT NOW, so we have to redefine \chaptermark and \sectionmark as follows (see Section $[*]$ ):

\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]%
   {\markboth{\uppercase{\thechapter.\ #1}}{}}
\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]%
   {\markright{\uppercase{\thesection.\ #1}}}

In an even-header, the page number is printed as the LeftHeader and the chapter info as the RightHeader; in an odd-header, the section info is printed as the LeftHeader and the page number as the RightHeader. The CenteredHeaders are empty. There are no footers.

There is a decorative line in the header. It is 0.5pt wide, so we need the commands:

\setlength{\headrulewidth}{0.5pt}
\setlength{\footrulewidth}{0pt}

The font used in the headers is 9 pt bold Helvetica. The PSNFSS system by Sebastian Rahtz uses the short (Karl Berry) name phv for Helvetica, so this font is selected with the commands:

\fontfamily{phv}\fontseries{b}\fontsize{9}{11}\selectfont

(See Sections 7.6.1 and 11.9.1 of the Companion.) Let us define a shorthand for this:

\newcommand{\helv}{%
   \fontfamily{phv}\fontseries{b}\fontsize{9}{11}\selectfont}

Now we are ready for the page layout:

\lhead[\helv \thepage]{\helv \rightmark}
\rhead[\helv \leftmark]{\helv \thepage}
\cfoot{}

Putting this all together:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{fancyheadings}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]%
   {\markboth{\uppercase{\thechapter.\ #1}}{}}
\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]%
   {\markright{\uppercase{\thesection.\ #1}}}
\setlength{\headrulewidth}{0.5pt}
\setlength{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
\newcommand{\helv}{%
   \fontfamily{phv}\fontseries{b}\fontsize{9}{11}\selectfont}
\lhead[\helv \thepage]{\helv \rightmark}
\rhead[\helv \leftmark]{\helv \thepage}
\cfoot{}