Text Formatting ⇒ Calculate actual text width

[theprofessor]

Hi all,

I have a raggedright section within a parbox. I want to calculate the length of the last line in this section. Unfortunately \settowidth doesn't work here. Any suggestions?

Cheers

[frabjous]

Please provide a minimal working example we can test with.

[theprofessor]

Here's my document:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\newlength\mylength
\begin{document}
\parbox{50pt}{\raggedright The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog}

\settowidth{\mylength}{\raggedright The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog}
\the\mylength

\settowidth{\mylength}{\parbox{50pt}{\raggedright The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog}}
\the\mylength
\end{document}

I want to measure the width of the last line in the parbox. The only command I know which comes close is \settowidth but in the above example, I can only get the width of the whole parbox, not the individual lines.

[frabjous]

My only thought at the moment would be to try something using the \linegoal command from the linegoal package, which tells you how much room there is left on the line. That, measured at the end of the last line, subtracted from the total width, should give you the width of the last line.

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{linegoal}
\newlength{\mylength}
\newlength{\myposition}
\begin{document}
\sloppy

\noindent\parbox{50pt}{\raggedright The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.\global\setlength{\myposition}{\linegoal}}

\noindent\setlength{\mylength}{50pt}%
\addtolength{\mylength}{-1\myposition}%
\noindent 50pt minus \the\myposition\ is \the\mylength

\bigskip
\noindent\parbox{50pt}{\raggedright The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy puma.\global\setlength{\myposition}{\linegoal}}

\noindent\setlength{\mylength}{50pt}%
\addtolength{\mylength}{-1\myposition}%
\noindent 50pt minus \the\myposition\ is \the\mylength

\end{document}

I confess this doesn't feel very robust to me, however, so use with caution.

[theprofessor]

Thanks, I didn't know about the linegoal package. It does require two compilations before it gets the correct values. Seems to be working fine. Great!

[localghost]

[…] Seems to be working fine. […]

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Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten