The .section command handles automatic chapter section numbering and formatting, in conjunction with the .chapter command.
.section sect.number text
| sect.number | Increments automatically in the range of 1-5. |
| text | Follows the section number, causing a skip to occur. |
The .section command automatically starts the next section at depth sect.number, where sect.number is the range 1-5. The text is printed following the section number and a .skip occurs. The text is recorded as the section heading in the Table of Contents. If no text displays on the .section command, no .skip occurs and the section is not recorded in the Table of Contents. Section numbers are incremented automatically and the section number is printed in the form 1.2.3.4.5, with n digits printed.
Conventionally, the .section command is followed by a blank line before the next paragraph starts. Since the .section command causes a paragraph break, which terminates the preceding paragraph, and since the text following the .section command is placed immediately into an output line and output prior to a consideration of the next line, the blank line after the .section command can be avoided by not indenting the first line of the next paragraph. That is, if the processor does not know that the next line starts a paragraph, it will not skip a line. It may be necessary to use an .indent margin if paragraph indentation is desired.