# Tabbing inside (nested) itemize environment using tabto

I'm writing a two columns document using the package multicol. In a two levels list, I would like to tab some text to the center of the column. Since I use this tab a lot, I previously defined the following command

\newcommand{\ta}{\tabto{0.5\columnwidth}}


Now, I would expect \columnwidth to remain the width of the entire column (in the same way as \textwidth should remain the width of the body). Instead, if I have nested, the tabbed text will end up at different positions.

This is a MWE

\documentclass[a4paper,table,10pt]{article}
\usepackage{tabto}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{vmargin}
\setpapersize[landscape]{A4}

\setmarginsrb{2cm}{2cm}{2cm}{2cm}{5pt}{2pt}{5pt}{23pt}
\newcommand{\ta}{\tabto{0.5\columnwidth}}
\begin{document}

\begin{multicols*}{2}

\ta The real center

\begin{itemize}
\item First level: \ta text
\begin{itemize}
\item second level:\ta unaligned
\end{itemize}
\item Equation:\ta $a^2=b^2+c^2$
\end{itemize}

\end{multicols*}

\end{document}


The same behaviour is observable in one-column documents using \textwidth.

Am I missing something?

• Why don't you look into the documentation of tabto? The first sentence already says "Tab to a position relative to the left margin in a paragraph (any indentation due to a list is part of the margin' in this context)." – Ulrike Fischer Aug 18 '17 at 17:53
• Shame on me. I looked into the documentation of multicol (without finding the solution) before discovering that the same behaviour could be observed in one-column documents and then embarassingly enough I didn't think at a possible explanation in tabto... – David Aug 19 '17 at 7:56

Thanks to @Ulrike Fischer for pointing out my negligence.

To have some text tabbed to mid-column, one just have to subtract the \leftmargin parameter of the current item.

Here a shorter version without using the multicol environment

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabto}

\begin{document}

\tabto{0.5\textwidth} The real center

\begin{itemize}
\item First level: \tabto{\dimexpr 0.5\textwidth - \the\leftmargini} text
\begin{itemize}
\item second level:\tabto{\dimexpr 0.5\textwidth - \the\leftmargini - \the\leftmarginii}
aligned
\end{itemize}
\item Equation:\tabto{\dimexpr 0.5\textwidth - \the\leftmargini}
$a^2=b^2+c^2$
\end{itemize}

\end{document}
`