Unbreakable block

Question

I want to do something like the following in TeX:

\begin{nobreak}  

Text here will not split over pages, it will remain
as one continuous chunk. If there isn't enough room
for it on the current page a pagebreak will happen
before it and the whole chunk will start on the next
page.  

\end{nobreak}

Is this possible?

Answer 1

See Preventing page breaks between lines in the TeX FAQ. Basically, you may use one of the following:

• the samepage environment;
• a \parbox or a minipage;
• the \needspace command of the package of the same name.

You may also need "to accept that not everything can be accomplished totally automatically".

Answer 2

A \vbox (or \vtop) will never be broken across pages:

\vbox{%
  Text here will not split over pages, it will remain
  as one continuous chunk. If there isn't enough room
  for it on the current page a pagebreak will happen
  before it and the whole chunk will start on the next
  page.}

(unless you \setbox it, and later \unvbox it)

Answer 3

You can also use packages to create and format the environment via options:

• package adjustbox
• package mdframed with the option nobreak
• package tcolorbox

Answer 4

\minipage works well when used in conjunction with the line width. To prevent overfull hbox's you need to use:

\noindent\begin{minipage}{\linewidth}
content on same page
\end{minipage}

The key is \linewidth. \linewidth is equivalent to the text width (\textwidth) when not in a list. When in a list, \linewidth accounts for the indentation of the list. One other item that may or may not be so obvious is you should have a blank line before the minipage block. If you don't the minipage block will become part of the text it's attached to and cause the overfull hbox. Example:

content 1

\noindent\begin{minipage}{\linewidth}
content on same page
\end{minipage}

content 2

In How make sure two elements stay on the same page? the suggestion was to use \textwidth but that doesn't work when in a list.