12

I have the following text in LaTeX:

enter image description here

I want that the second sentence of item A starts below the first word of the first sentence (So 'It is raw...' is outlined with 'Data are facts...'). I have search on the internet for an example in special for a description list, but I can not manage it (already tried \noindent and other packages).

The code (introduction.tex):

\begin{description}
\item[A)] Data are facts, events or transactions and so on which have been recorded. 
               It is raw material input from which information is produced.
\item[B)] Information is data that has been processed and communicated in such 
               a way that it can be interpreted and understood by the recipient.
\end{description}

The main .tex file is called thesis.tex. In the main file packages are declared.

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  • Welcome to TeX.sx! Your post was migrated here from Stack Overflow. Please register on this site, too, and make sure that both accounts are associated with each other (by using the same OpenID), otherwise you won't be able to comment on or accept answers or edit your question.
    – Werner
    Jun 17, 2013 at 22:45

3 Answers 3

16

Just to add to @Werner's excellent answer:

If you have very long labels in a description environment, sometimes it actually looks nicest to have the text wrap underneath the start of the labels, like so:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}% http://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem
\begin{document}
\begin{description}[style=unboxed,leftmargin=0cm]
\item[A)] Data are facts, events or transactions and so on which have been recorded. 
               It is raw material input from which information is produced.
\item[Some labels are pretty long] Information is data that has been processed and communicated in such 
               a way that it can be interpreted and understood by the recipient.
\end{description}
\end{document}

Resulting in: description environments look good with leftmargin=0cm

2
  • 2
    what is the style=unboxed option for?
    – Eric
    Mar 15, 2016 at 14:53
  • 1
    From the enumitem doc: unboxed: much like the standard description, but the label is not boxed to avoid uneven spacing and unbroken labels if they are long. Aug 2, 2018 at 16:24
7

The enumitem package provides easy control over list formatting and length manipulation. Here's a quick comparison from using your description and an automated enumerate:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}% http://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem
\begin{document}
\begin{description}
\item[A)] Data are facts, events or transactions and so on which have been recorded. 
               It is raw material input from which information is produced.
\item[B)] Information is data that has been processed and communicated in such 
               a way that it can be interpreted and understood by the recipient.
\end{description}

\begin{enumerate}[label=\textbf{\Alph*)},ref=\Alph*,leftmargin=*]
\item Data are facts, events or transactions and so on which have been recorded. 
               It is raw material input from which information is produced.
\item Information is data that has been processed and communicated in such 
               a way that it can be interpreted and understood by the recipient.
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}

The advantage from using the latter is that you can \label and \ref itemized content the way you would normally floats and sectional units. Using your description with a fixed item label \item[<lab>] is cumbersome, prone to error and not capable of handling references.

1

Have you tried the enumitem package? It gives you a great deal of control over lists. Its options, along with a diagram of the different lengths associated with lists (see, for instance, this one) will certainly let you do what you describe.

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