Re: a latex-widths question

[Eric G.Miller <egm2@jps.net>]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:02:48 -0100, andrej hocevar <ah@siol.net> wrote:

> I've seen some LaTeX discussions here, so just a quick question:
> how do I tell LaTeX that a box should have the width of a certain
> word? (Precisely, I mean a real box; a rectangle of given
> dimensions.)

In the category of more than one way to do it...

You can use an \fbox{Your Text}, and adjust the box padding with
\setlength{\fboxsep}{NNunits}.

A more complicated example from LaTeX Companion:

%% In preamble
\newlength{\wdth}
\newcommand{\defbox}[1]{\settowidth{\wdth}{#1}}
\newcommand{\textbox}[1]{\framebox[\wdth]{#1}}

%% Example usage
as wide as this text\\
\defbox{as wide as this text}\textbox{}\\
\textbox{text}\\
\textbox{longer text}

%% Produces something like
   
   as wide as this text
  +--------------------+
  |                    |
  +--------------------+
  +--------------------+
  |       text         +
  +--------------------+
  +--------------------+
  |    longer text     +
  +--------------------+


-- 
Eric G. Miller <egm2@jps.net>