[Tex/LaTex] Reduce the space between label and item in a description list

descriptionspacing

I have description lists that I'm using discursively, like

\begin{description}
    \item[Video recordings] arguably produced the richest part of the data set.
    \item[Questionnaires] were no second, mind you!
\end{description}

Unfortunately this renders with a space between the label and the item that is larger than the regular space between words on the same line:

An example of a description list in LaTeX.

Is there anything I can do to make that space between "Video recordings" and "arguably" equal to that between "arguably" and "produced" and so on?

Best Answer

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\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\begin{document}

\begin{description}[labelsep=\fontdimen2\font]
    \item[Video recordings] arguably produced the richest part of the data set.
    \item[Questionnaires] were no second, mind you!
\end{description}

\end{document}

To control the space between the label and the item, you can change the labelsep parameter of the description list (available from the enumitem package). To obtain the regular word spacing, you need \fontdimen2 (the normal interword space) for labelsep. This is done by passing:

[labelsep=\fontdimen2\font]

as an option to the description environment.

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