Customized horizontal line

Question

I am trying to attain the following style of customized horizontal rule for my document.

I tried the following LATEX code.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[top=1cm, left=1cm, right=1cm, bottom=1.5cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{xcolor,lipsum}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]\\
{\color{gray} \rule{4.85 cm}{2 pt}}\  {\color{lightgray} \rule{\linewidth}{2 pt}}
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

This gives the following satisfying result but I am unable to break the rule from crossing the line width. How to solve this issue? Is there any other way to get this type of horizontal rule?

Answer 1

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[top=1cm, left=1cm, right=1cm, bottom=1.5cm, showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage{xcolor,lipsum,calc}
\newlength{\spacelength}
\setlength{\spacelength}{\widthof{\ }}

\begin{document}
   \lipsum[1]\\
   {\color{gray} \rule{4.85 cm}{2 pt}}\  {\color{lightgray} \rule{\dimexpr\linewidth-4.85cm-\spacelength\relax}{2 pt}}
   \lipsum[1]
\end{document}

The problem is that you wanted

• a rule of 4.85cm
• a space
• and a rule of \linewidth. This is of course more than one line, so you have to shorten the last line. You want it to have \linewidth - 2.85cm - WidthOfASpace. You can calculate this length simply by typing \dimexpr WhatYouWantToCalculate \relax. To get the width of a space, I used \widthof from the calc-package.

I added the showframe-option to geometry just to show that the line has now the perfect length, you can remove it without breaking anything.