Problem with tabto package

Question

I'm having a problem with the otherwise excellent "tabto" package: the baseline of large text positioned after the first tab stop isn't calculated correctly, leading to ugly overlaps with the previous line.

Here's an example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{tabto}

\begin{document}

Here is a list of some items:

\NumTabs{3}
\noindent
(a) An item.\tab
(b) Another item. \tab
(c) Again, an item. \tab
(d) {\huge A rather large item.} \tab
(e) The final item.

\vspace{12pt}

Here is a list of some items:

\NumTabs{2}
\noindent
(a) An item.\tab
(b) Another item. \tab
(c) Again, an item. \tab
(d) {\huge A rather large item.} \tab
(e) The final item.

\end{document}

The first set of tabbed items looks great. In the second "A rather large item" overlaps the text on the line above.

If anyone has a suggestion for a workaround, either in my document or as a patch to the package, I'd appreciate it.

Answer 1

Now this is an answer of the type: there is a package for that. :) It's called: ta-dah! - multienum

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{multienum}

\begin{document}

Here is a list of some items:

\begin{multienumerate}
\mitemxxx{An item.}{Another item.}{Again, an item.}
\mitemxox{\huge A rather large item.}{The final item.}
\end{multienumerate}

\vspace{12pt}

\begin{multienumerate}
\mitemxxo{An item.}{Another item.}
\mitemxxo{Again, an item.}{\huge A rather large item.}
\mitemx{The final item.}{}
\end{multienumerate}

\end{document}

which produces:

Answer 2

Unrelated to tabto you should never use a size changing command without including the end of paragraph within the scope otherwise the baseline spacing will be wrong.

Not sure either is that lovely but you can go

(d) \huge A rather large item. \tab\normalsize

which makes

Or you can go

(d) {\huge A rather large item.\par} \tab

Answer 3

I ended up solving this by using the tabular environment, which was a much better approach than what I'd been trying. The other answers were fine, but none worked given the constraints I had. Anyway, here's what I used in case it's useful (or could be improved).

\int_new:N \l__tabs_columns
\dim_new:N \l__tabs_space

\newcounter{tabstop}
\DeclareExpandableDocumentCommand \thetabstop{} {\itemstyle{\alph{tabstop}}}

\cs_new:Nn \l__tabs_item: {
  \int_compare:nT
    { \value{tabstop} != 0 }
    {
      \int_compare:nTF
      { \int_mod:nn{ \value{tabstop} }{ \l__tabs_columns }  == 0 }
      { \\ }
      { & }
    }
  \refstepcounter{tabstop}
  \thetabstop {~}
}

\NewDocumentEnvironment {tabs}{m} {
  \setlength {\tabcolsep} {0pt}
  \setcounter {tabstop} {0}
  \int_set:Nn \l__tabs_columns {#1}
  \dim_set:Nn \l__tabs_space { \textwidth / \l__tabs_columns }
  \cs_set_eq:NN \item \l__tabs_item:
  \par \addvspace{0.10\onelineskip} \noindent
  \begin{tabular}[t]{*{\l__tabs_columns}{p{\l__tabs_space}}}
}{
  \end{tabular}
  \par \addvspace{0.20\onelineskip} \noindent \ignorespacesafterend
}

I use it like so:

Give the domain of definition of each function $f$ defined below, and describe
or sketch its graph:
\begin{tabs}{3}
  \item\label{first} $f(x) = 1/(1 + x^2)$
  \item\label{second} $f(x,y) = 4 - x^2 - y^2$
  \item $f(x) = x/(x - 1)$
  \item $f(x,y) = 1/(x^2 - y^2)$
  \item $f(x,y) = \tfrac{1}{2}(1/x + 1/y)$
  \item $f(x,y) = \sqrt{x^2 + y^2}$
  \item $f(x,y) = x^y$.
\end{tabs}

Seems to work without any issues for me.