[Tex/LaTex] Fill space created by \phantom with other text

spacing

I am looking for a command I am pretty certain to have used before but which I cannot recall (and I did search for it):

I want to create (horizontal) space of some length, e.g. created using \phantom{text}, with some other (shorter) text. It should simply fill the white space for as far as the replacing text reaches, i.e. it does not need to be stretched to fill the whole space.

I hope I explained this sufficiently since providing a MWE is hard without knowing the answer…

Best Answer

You can just put the short text in a box of zero width and then place the phantom afterwards as follows

\makebox[0pt][l]{short}\phantom{my long text}

Sample output

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

XX\makebox[0pt][l]{short}\phantom{my long text}XX

XXmy long textXX

\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to one produce spaces of arbitrary (fixed or relative) width that (do or don’t) linebreak

Maybe this info helps: Lengths and when to use them. You can use different units of measure in the <skip>, for example: pt, ex, em, in, mm or cm among others. It is also valid to use only the <natural width>, for example \hspace{1in}.

[Tex/LaTex] Manual linebreak with justification but without empty line afterwards

if the last line of your paragraph is really nearly full, you can get it to end flush right by the following approach.

wrap the paragraph in braces.
end the paragraph with these commands (inside the braces):
```
\unskip\parfillskip 0pt \par
```

update: a mechanism that doesn't require braces.

before the paragraph, insert
```
\startsquarepar
```
at the end of the paragraph, insert
```
\stopsquarepar
```

define these two commands in the preamble as follows:

\newcommand{\startsquarepar}{%
    \par\begingroup \parfillskip 0pt \relax}
\newcommand{\stopsquarepar}{%
    \par\endgroup}

it's not necessary to have blank lines either before or after either of these commands (the grouping and included \par ensures that that's not a problem), but readability and "good practice" suggests that a blank line before \startsquarepar and one after \stopsquarepar is a good idea.

blank lines within the scope of \startsquarepar and \stopsquarepar will start new paragraphs as expected, and all paragraphs within this scope will end flush right -- whether or not there's the right amount of material in each paragraph to avoid excessive spacing.

why didn't i use \begin... and \end...? while there are no "strings" attached to \begin..., latex has co-opted the use of \end... for its own purposes in defining environments. if you really prefer the \begin ... \end terminology and environment syntax, it's easy to transform the two command definitions given into a single environment definition. (but left as an exercise to the reader.)

edit: one final suggestion from egreg's comment (to keep it from getting lost).

{{\parfillskip0pt\par}} can be a useful for a manual solution as it doesn't need bracing the paragraph.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to one produce spaces of arbitrary (fixed or relative) width that (do or don’t) linebreak

[Tex/LaTex] Manual linebreak with justification but without empty line afterwards

Related Question