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I'd like to redefine the \verb|...| command so that it had a light-gray background and a little bit darker border around it, and a little bit of padding to make this background "box" noticable. Anyone knows how to do that? If that is not possible to do easily, can I define a new command that acts like \verb|...| and does that?

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Note that it is \verb<char>...<char>, e.g. \verb|...| or \verb{...{, not \verb{..}. – Martin Scharrer♦ Jul 5 '11 at 20:00
Oh, right. I thought it was like in Perl. I use \verb|..| myself all the time but for some unknown reason wrote {...} in the question – Peteris Krumins Jul 5 '11 at 20:03
It's a pitty that xparse doesn't support a verbatim argument type. – Martin Scharrer♦ Jul 5 '11 at 20:06
@Martin: There are good reasons why xparse does not deal with verbatim material (essentially, a truly general solution is not available, as TeX's parsing approach makes certain cases impossible to handle with generalised code). – Joseph Wright♦ Jul 5 '11 at 21:12
@Joseph: Indeed. I just had a look on \verb again to improve newverbs and will have to at least provide two ways: one which really only provides the verbatim characters and one which provides them in a typeset-able form (e.g. using \@noligs). – Martin Scharrer♦ Jul 5 '11 at 21:18
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3 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

Update 2011-07-27

As promised the new version of my newverbs package provides two macros to collect verbatim arguments with the \verb|...| syntax but also with { .. }. For typesettable verbatim use \collectverb{\macrowhichgetsitasargument}.

For the requested colored background and frame use the \fcolorbox{<frame color>}{<background color>}{<text>} macro.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{newverbs}[2011/07/23]
\newcommand{\myverb}{\collectverb{\fcolorbox{black!50}{black!25}}}

\begin{document}
    \myverb|%^&\|
    \myverb{%^&\}
\end{document}

Result

The newverbs package allows you to define variations of the \verb command which code placed before and after it. You need to use a savebox for advanced formatting. (I'm planning to also support macros which receive the verbatim text as normal argument in the next version.)

Example:

\usepackage{newverbs}

\newverbcommand{\myverb}{\begin{lrbox}{\verbbox}\mytextformatmacro}{\end{lrbox}{\mycommand{\usebox{\verbbox}}}

...

\myverb|%^&\|

Use the xcolor package to add colors.

The package already provides \fverb (draws a \fbox around it) and \qverb (adds quoting signs) by default.

You could also use the \verb-like \lstinline macro of the listings package. It accepts the many listings options.

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1  
\lstinline does not support backgroundcolor, at least in my version, which is pretty sad. By not supporting I mean not an error, but lack of the effect. – przemoc Jul 5 '11 at 20:52
@przemoc: If you want backgroundcolor with \lstinline, perhaps how to redefine lstinline to automatically highlight or draw frames around all inline code snippets might be helpful. – Peter Grill Feb 1 '12 at 0:10
up vote 3 down vote

I've modified the standard \verb command and got the result, but anyway I recommend Martin's approach.

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{color}
\definecolor{cverbbackground}{gray}{0.7}
\definecolor{cverbborder}{gray}{0.2}
\makeatletter
\newbox\cverbbox
\def\cverb{\setbox\cverbbox=\hbox\bgroup
    \verb@eol@error \let\do\@makeother \dospecials
    \verbatim@font\@noligs
    \@ifstar\@scverb\@cverb}
\def\@scverb#1{%
  \catcode`#1\active
  \lccode`\~`#1%
  \gdef\verb@balance@group{\cverb@egroup
     \@latex@error{\noexpand\verb illegal in command argument}\@ehc}%
  \aftergroup\verb@balance@group
  \lowercase{\let~\cverb@egroup}}%
\def\@cverb{\@vobeyspaces \frenchspacing \@scverb}
\def\cverb@egroup{\global\let\verb@balance@group\@empty\egroup
  \fcolorbox{cverbborder}{cverbbackground}{\box\cverbbox}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\cverb|ab{\c| \cverb*|a }|
\end{document}
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That's basically what newverbs does by itself, except it adds small begin and end hooks in the normal \verb so that it can be reused for multiple \verb like macros. It also support the \verb replacement of tabularx as a bonus. – Martin Scharrer♦ Jul 5 '11 at 20:44
1  
@Martin: I supposed so. It was just to try it out. – egreg Jul 5 '11 at 20:46
This solution is the best i ve found, but is there a way to change \verb{} font color, and font size? – 71GA Mar 13 '12 at 8:11
up vote 3 down vote

Here a solution which works with xparse:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{xparse}
\NewDocumentCommand{\Fverb}{v}
      {\fcolorbox{black!50}{black!25}{#1}}
\begin{document} 
HALLO \Fverb|\foo| HALLO
\end{document}
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Not quite: \Fverb|!`| will give ¡. – egreg Jan 30 '12 at 18:47
@egreg: Why this? I tested only commands ;-). A space between |! `| works. – Marco Daniel Jan 30 '12 at 18:50
1  
The font has ligatures defined. Indeed in traditional verbatim mode the backquote, <, > and - are active and defined so as not to produce ligatures. – egreg Jan 30 '12 at 18:56

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