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I cannot remember how to create an invisible character in LaTeX, i.e. I want to put a space the that has the width of a particular character, say `M'. I know there is a command for this, and this is a really dumb question, but my Google fu has failed me.

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Please accept either your or TH.s answer to conclude this question. Thank you. – Martin Scharrer♦ May 9 '11 at 18:27

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You already found the answer, but let me expand a bit. There are three phantom commands. They each take a single argument.

  1. \hphantom inserts an empty box that has zero height, zero depth, and the width of its argument.
  2. \vphantom inserts an empty box that has the height and depth of the argument, but zero width.
  3. \phantom inserts an empty box with the same dimensions as the arguments.
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Why is there height, width and depth? 3D in typesetting? – Kit Oct 25 '10 at 2:32
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Height is the length above the baseline, depth is the length below. So a character such as "X" will have a height but zero depth, and "g" has (a smaller) height as well as depth. – Will Robertson Oct 25 '10 at 3:44
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OK, I finally found it. The command is \phantom.

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This isn't a dumb question. The answer would be better if it gave an example of its use, or referenced some resource that explained the command. – Charles Stewart Oct 24 '10 at 21:08

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