Text Formatting ⇒ parbox that adds no vertical space?

[verbatim]

I'm looking for a way to make a parbox that renders as a multi-line box of text, but whose height, for layout purposes, is considered to be just one line, so that following text is unaffected.

Here's a MWE that shows the issue:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{algorithm}
\usepackage{algorithmicx}

\begin{document}
\begin{algorithm}
\begin{algorithmic}[1]
\State foo \Comment{ \parbox[t]{3in}{This is a very long comment, that needs to span several lines, but doesn't need to take up vertical space, as the following lines of code are short, and don't need comments in the margin}}
\State foo
\State foo
\State foo
\State foo
\State foo
\State foo
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
\end{document}

[localghost]

You can use the \smash command to "hide" the height of a box and make the compiler neglect this height.

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{algorithm}
\usepackage{algorithmicx}

\begin{document}
  \begin{algorithm}
    \begin{algorithmic}[1]
      \State foo
      \Comment{%
        \smash{%
          \parbox[t]{3in}{%
            This is a very long comment, that needs to span several lines, but doesn't need to take up vertical space, as the following lines of code are short, and don't need comments in the margin
          }
        }
      }
      \State foo
      \State foo
      \State foo
      \State foo
      \State foo
      \State foo
    \end{algorithmic}
  \end{algorithm}
\end{document}

Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[verbatim]

Perfect, thanks!