{environments} is for general questions related to (La)TeX environments. For questions about environment subcategories like {lists}, {quoting} environments, or {floats} use the appropriate tag instead.
35
votes
3answers
4k views
Is it a bad idea to use \begin{section} … \end{section} in LaTeX?
In several discussions about relatives merits of LaTeX v. xml, a xml supporter complained that in LaTeX sections, subsections etc are not properly closed, so it is hard to tell where a section ends. ...
34
votes
3answers
11k views
What's the difference between the environments quote and quotation?
On meta, I've found the disscussion {quotation} and {quote}, but it doesn't answer my question.
When should I use the environment quote? When quotation?
32
votes
8answers
1k views
Where do I find out how a command/environment is defined?
Say I want to redefine the itemize environment, or make a modified version of it. I want to know how it is currently defined. Where do I find this information? If it's some particular package command, ...
31
votes
1answer
1k views
Defining environments based on other ones: What's the right way?
Assume that I want to define a new environment that is a variant of an existing one. For example, I seek an italicquote environment that acts like the quote environment but displays its contents in ...
27
votes
5answers
1k views
Why can't the end code of an environment contain an argument?
Environments are allowed to have arguments, but reference to those arguments can only appear in the opening code of the environment, and not the closing code. What is the reason for this, and are ...
27
votes
6answers
941 views
Is it possible to automatically enumerate sentences in LaTeX?
1.0.1 Is it possible to automatically enumerate sentences in LaTeX?
2.0.1 I want to thoroughly work through and criticize a longer text. 2.0.2 To facilitate quoting, I would like to typeset the text ...
23
votes
1answer
173 views
Why is there no \provideenvironment?
LaTeX2e provides a \providecommand but there is no \provideenvironment which defines an environment only if it (or a macro with the same name) was not defined before. Is there a specific reason why it ...
22
votes
2answers
937 views
How to automatically add text immediately after \begin{document}
I attempted to redefine the document environment as follows, but get a complaint that:
LaTeX Error: \begin{MYdocument} on input line 13 ended by \end{document}.
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
...
21
votes
4answers
668 views
Do all starred commands have anything in common?
\section* produces an unnumbered section, align* makes the environment unnumbered, which is comparable in a way. \newcommand* doesn't accept \par in its argument, which is different.
Stefan Kottwitz ...
20
votes
2answers
341 views
Environment that counts words inside
How can I create the environment that could count words inside itself? More specifically, I want to write an enviroment called "assignment" such that the code
\begin{assignment}
Some words here.
...
19
votes
7answers
439 views
How to create a command that automatically escapes curly braces?
How could I create a command that will automatically escape all curly braces within the current environment?
For instance, I would like a command (or environment, I suppose) that allows me to write ...
19
votes
2answers
1k views
Defining a new environment whose contents go in a TikZ node
I would like to define an environment which typesets the contents in a box, and I'd like to use TikZ (I'm aware of alternatives like fancybox). So I would like something like
\newenvironment{abox}%
...
19
votes
4answers
1k views
Numbers outside Math environment
Should numbers inside the text be placed inside a math environment?
For example, if I am writing ...indent code by 4 spaces..., should I write it this way or ...indent code by $4$ spaces...?
...
18
votes
3answers
304 views
Comma-separated list environment
This question is somewhat of a follow up to an answer to a previous question (http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/11587/13522).
I would like to create a list environment (similar to itemize and enumerate) ...
18
votes
2answers
1k views
Label and caption without float
I’d like to have an environment that works much like a float, except that it doesn’t float.
That is, in fact, I’d like to be able to define an environment that has a label and a caption.
I ...
18
votes
2answers
405 views
Does \newenvironment have a \provideenvironment cousin, as \newcommand has \providecommand?
To avoid the problem of having to decide whether to use \newcommand or \renewcommand, LaTeX has the option of \providecommand.
Is there something corresponding to this for environments? I'd like to ...
17
votes
1answer
162 views
Environments for visually setting text apart
I have a document consisting of alternating paragraphs from different voices. Because the paragraph blocks look too much alike, I need some way to give the different parts a different look.
I have ...
17
votes
2answers
3k views
How to modify spacing around quotation environment?
I am almost there in my quest to reproduce the rather compact layout of the book I'm translating... one thing to go, though:
I successfully used the enumitem package to modify the vertical and ...
16
votes
6answers
413 views
A new environment to decide dynamically which commands to run?
I am having some user defined commands defined and used in my latex document. I need a way to check whether any of the commands is used. I want to make decisions based on the argument used in the ...
16
votes
4answers
544 views
Is there a reason to use \begin{environment} \end{environment} rather than \environment \endenvironment?
What reason (other than perhaps being easier for my syntax highlighter to parse) is there to write
\begin{center}
Here is centered text
\end{center}
rather than:
\center
Here is centered text
...
16
votes
2answers
270 views
Why do I have to put the center environment in a group for \@afterindentfalse\@afterheading to suppress indentation?
Consider the following two macros, the only difference being that one has the environment inside a group:
\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\newcommand\thisworks{%
{\begin{center}
$\ast$
...
16
votes
1answer
193 views
What is the difference between \newenvironment and \newenvironment*?
I vaguely seem to recall reading that \newenvironment* gives better spacing than \newenvironment, but I don't recall any details and I can't seem to find a reference by searching. What is the ...
15
votes
5answers
2k views
New figure environment
I am writing my PhD thesis. In my manuscript I have Figures in the text and Photographic plates (a figure of figures) in the annexes. The two elements are different and I would like create a new ...
15
votes
4answers
4k views
Making a new environment combining equation and split
I'm trying to define a new environment that consists of a split environment inside an equation environment. But I'm getting an error. Here's what I'm doing:
\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
...
15
votes
3answers
3k views
Quote environment with reference at the end right
I want to define a quote environment such that after the quote on the right occurs the author with page number. My solution is yet the redefinition of the quote environment
\usepackage{amsthm} % ...
15
votes
3answers
453 views
Formatting FAQ lists in LaTeX
I want to format a list of "Question + Answer" pairs in a TeX-document.
In HTML I use the <dl> command: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/lists.html, e.g.:
<dl>
...
15
votes
5answers
565 views
How to put a star (or other symbol) in sections that are “special” (difficult, optional, etc)?
I'm currently writing a book, and I'd like some of the sections to be clearly marked as "difficult" or "optional". Not only sections, but also exercises (I'm using the exercise package) and theorems ...
15
votes
2answers
1k views
Definitive guide to trivlists
I create a lot of theorem-like environments, and I'm usually happy to employ a package (such as ntheorem, amsthm, etc) to do the work for me.
After studying the ntheorem documentation, and reading ...
15
votes
1answer
341 views
How to define a starred version of an environment in LaTeX
I am interested in defining a new environment in LaTeX that has a starred version. How is this done?
15
votes
1answer
390 views
What exactly does \@doendpe do?
Quoting from the LaTeX2e sources:
[\@endparenv, \@doendpe]
To suppress the paragraph indentation in text immediately following a
paragraph-making environment, \everypar is changed to remove ...
15
votes
4answers
1k views
How to prevent paragraph breaks after theorem environments?
By default, the list environments (such as itemize) have the nice property that if you add a blank line after it, it starts a new paragraph, and if you don't, the paragraph continues. So
The ...
15
votes
2answers
5k views
Block comments with *% and %*
I know the package comment which allows to use :
\begin{comment}
Lines
to
comment
\end{comment}
This is not very friendly to use. I would like to have the following possibility:
*%
Lines
to
...
15
votes
2answers
392 views
Graph of dependencies from LaTeX file
This is inspired by the MO question here.
Suppose I'm writing a math paper, with theorem and proofs, etc. At the end of writing, I want to design a graph of dependencies, that is, a graph containing ...
14
votes
9answers
723 views
Looking for a more appropriate version of \cases
Often-times I find myself wanting to write something like,
That is, a vertical brace followed by a table consisting of three columns, the first and the last are math, aligned where-ever I like, and ...
14
votes
2answers
344 views
Automatically add quotes
I would like to create a new environment which will behave similar to quote, but with quotes added. I tried something like this:
...
14
votes
2answers
583 views
A special example environment
How can I define an environment named "example" so that:
can be broken over pages
has a horizontal line above "Example \chap.\no" (e.g. Example 4.10),
and vertical line that is spread to the whole ...
14
votes
2answers
131 views
Repeating environment contents twice
I'm writing a document where I have many code blocks like so:
\begin{align}
d = \sqrt{ (x'-x)^2 }
\end{align}
\begin{minted}{latex}
d = \sqrt{ (x'-x)^2 }
\end{minted}
So the first line renders ...
13
votes
3answers
762 views
Why does LaTeX make a distinction between commands and environments?
Why does LaTeX make a distinction between commands and environments?
Or also: why do we need environments?
I ask this because I am defining a number of custom commands (like \question{} and ...
13
votes
4answers
222 views
\let and sneaky redefinitions that are wrappers for the original macro: is there a similar thing for environments?
Let's say I am using some macro \foo that almost does what I want, but I actually want to add space either side of the output of \foo. I can do the following:
\let\tempfoo\foo
...
13
votes
5answers
389 views
Command behavior depending on current environment
I would like to write a LaTeX macro whose code depends on the parent environment such as:
\newcommand\test{
%if current_environment=env1
test1
%elseif current_environment=env2
test2
%else
}
...
13
votes
2answers
2k views
Split-like environment inside cases environment
I'd like to have a cases environment with some cases that are too long to fit on one line. I tried this:
\begin{cases}
\begin{split}
long expression \\ second line of long expression
...
13
votes
2answers
3k views
What does the titlepage environment do and what are its benefits?
I'm speaking about the article document class only, because report and book deal with titles in a different way.
Obviously, the titlepage environment triggers a new page after it, and it resets the ...
13
votes
2answers
1k views
How to create new table environment
I am working on a book that has many many such tables. Is there a way to create shortcut for the code shown below. I want to make table caption a variable, because in the MWE shown below except ...
13
votes
2answers
332 views
Centering text on a page
I'll try to illustrate what I want to accomplish. I want an enviroment/page style for poems that works like this -- the title (if present) is placed in the title placeholder (purple).
The body of the ...
13
votes
1answer
1k views
Passing \newenvironment parameters to the end block?
I am attempting to construct a new environment which will allow me to format arbitrary list types (itemize, enumerate, description etc.) with the new environment. As such I am passing it as a ...
12
votes
5answers
4k views
Customizing theorem name
Suppose I have a series of theorems that I would like displayed as
Jim's Theorem.
Bob's Theorem.
Will's Theorem.
rather than as “Theorem (Jim).”, “Theorem (Bob).”, and “Theorem ...
12
votes
2answers
725 views
How do you define your environment such as to use […] for some parameter(s)?
In an environment, say
\newenvironment{whatever}[3]{...}{...}
you instantiante it (if that's the word for it in LaTeX) by
\begin{whatever}{first}{second}{third}
...
\end{whatever}
But how do ...
12
votes
3answers
430 views
Defining commands that are scoped to a particular environment
Is it possible to define commands in a separate namespace so that they only work within a particular environment?
For example, can I create a package named foo that defines a foo environment and a ...
12
votes
2answers
143 views
LaTeX adds an additional blank paragraph after the end of my custom environment
A friend, who is a LaTeX user but isn't very confident with customising it, told me that he would like to be able to put framed paragraphs and framed equations into his documents. So I took it upon ...
12
votes
3answers
2k views
Problem with redefining Tabular environment with the \renewenvironment command
In a book I'm typesetting, I want the tabular environment to be in footnote size and the other body of the book to be in normalsize font. To do this, I've tried something like the following:
...
