I want to have a box, aligned based on top border. I can do this with minipage[t]
, but i would have to specify the width, which i do not want.
What is thus the simplest way to have a top-aligned box, with dynamic width?
Here is a short example showing the difference between varwidth
(from the varwidth
package) and other fixed-width boxes like \parbox
and minipage
:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[landscape]{geometry}% http://ctan.org/pkg/geometry
\usepackage{varwidth}% http://ctan.org/pkg/varwidth
\begin{document}
Some text \fbox{\parbox[t]{0.25\textwidth}{in here \rule{5em}{1pt} \par and here}}\
Some text \fbox{\begin{minipage}[t]{0.25\textwidth}in here \rule{5em}{1pt} \par and here\end{minipage}} Some text \fbox{\begin{varwidth}[t]{0.25\textwidth}in here \rule{5em}{1pt} \par and here\end{varwidth}}
\end{document}
Note how the width for each box is specified as 0.25\textwidth
. However, only the last shrunk down to the natural width of the contents.
Shrinking is a natural process in terms of boxing. Enlarging in a similar context as above is less natural, since one would not know where to start breaking lines.
-
@nicolasroy: Yes, you need to know what to search for in order to find things - slightly catch-22-ish.
:)
– Werner Dec 22 '11 at 19:25
varwidth
package providesvarwidth
which is exactly likeminipage
, but shrinks to the natural width of it's contents. Is this what you're after? If not, please provide more detail - perhaps in the form of an image. – Werner Dec 21 '11 at 7:44