Adding a large brace next to a body of text

Question

I'm writing a short document listing some chronological events. I want to pick out a period with a big brace. Here's a quick mockup:

What's the best way to do this? Can I set the size declaratively - ie from line A to line B - somehow?

Answer 1

I suggest a variation of Giel's answer with tabular

$\left.\begin{tabular}{l}
line \\
one more line
\end{tabular}\right\}$

(or smth like {tabular}{p{5cm}} if you need not a couple of short lines but a paragraph inside the tabular).

Answer 2

I'd seriously suggest using tikz for this. Here's an alternative to Caramdir's (excellent) solution:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathreplacing,calc}

\newcommand{\tikzmark}[1]{\tikz[overlay,remember picture] \node (#1) {};}

\begin{document}

\hfill\tikzmark{right}
\begin{itemize}
\item First line
\item Second line \tikzmark{2nd}
\item Third line, which is quite long and seemingly tedious in the extreme
\item Fourth line, which isn't as long as the third \tikzmark{4th}
\item Fifth line
\end{itemize}

\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay, remember picture]
\draw [decoration={brace,amplitude=0.5em},decorate,ultra thick,gray]
 ($(right)!(2nd.north)!($(right)-(0,1)$)$) --  ($(right)!(4th.south)!($(right)-(0,1)$)$);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

What I like about this one is that it doesn't mess around with how the actual data is put in, the decoration is added afterwards almost as an afterthought, which (to me) fits in better with the feel of what you're trying to do.

What isn't so good is the placement of the brace horizontally. Because I don't know how your are typesetting your data, nor what sort of data it is, I've just shoved the brace to the right-hand side. If your data is more structured, as the graphic suggests, then it would be easy to make it appear in the right place. (Indeed, from experimenting, I'd say that if your data isn't nicely structured - by which I mean that the lines should be of similar widths - then a brace at the right-hand side doesn't look good as it's not easy to see exactly which lines it is including or excluding.)

Answer 3

Just for fun an answer using TikZ:

\usetikzlibrary{matrix,decorations.pathreplacing}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \matrix (m) [matrix of nodes,column 1/.style={anchor=west}]
    {
    The first line. \\
    The second line. \\
    A very long third line that goes on. \\
    A fourth line. \\
    And finally a last line. \\
    };

    \draw [decoration={brace,amplitude=0.5em},decorate,ultra thick,gray]
        (m-2-1.north -| m.east) -- (m-4-1.south -| m.east);
\end{tikzpicture}

To specify from which row to which row the brace should go change m-2-1 and m-4-1 accordingly (the second number is always the row). To change thickness and color, change the ultra thick and gray parts (see section 14.3 of the TikZ manual). To add a text to the right of the brace change -- to -- node[black, right=0.7em] {some text}. The amplitude option defines how much the brace extends and you can add ,aspect=factor (with factor replaced by a number between 0 and 1) to specify where the pointy part lies on the brace (see section 27.3). Changing anchor=west to anchor=east make the lines right aligned, removing it centers them.

Answer 4

In mathmode you could use some trickery like putting a matrix to the left of a \right}, e.g.:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{displaymath}
    \left. \begin{array}{cc}
        - & - \\
        - & - \\
        - & -
    \end{array} \right\}
\end{displaymath}

\end{document}

Answer 5

You can use pstricks-add.sty as follows: (details can be found here on page 18)

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{pstricks-add}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\par\noindent%
\begin{minipage}{0.99\linewidth}%adjust if necessary
\noindent\hfill\rnode{A}{}~
\par
\vspace*{-0.5ex}%adjust if necessary
\lipsum[1]
\vspace*{-2ex}%adjust if necessary
\noindent\hfill\hspace{5mm}\rnode{B}{}~%
\psbrace[linecolor=red,ref=lC](B)(A){Important!}
\end{minipage}
\par
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

This is the output: