Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ \the \textwidth and \the\textheight with no units

[Curious George]

Here is the context: In beamer presentations, I often include slides which display a number of color pictures from various sources, in various formats (jpg, png, pdf). I use the LaTeX picture() environment because it gives fine-grained control over exactly where and in what order the graphics should be placed. Ideally, would like to begin such a slide by

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\begin{picture}(\textwidth,\textheight)

telling Latex to create a picture space exactly as large as the text area of the slide, with origin in the lower left corner. But the following doesn't work:

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\begin{picture}(\the\textwidth,\the\textheight)

because the two "\the" commands give a number followed by a units name ("pt"). How can I get the get the number of points, but not the units, to include in a \begin{picture} command? Bonus would be to display numbers such as "0.5\textwidth" without units also, as arguments to the "\put" command.

Thanks for any asistance.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

You could use \strip@pt, such as here:

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\documentclass{article} 
\begin{document}
\the\textwidth

\makeatletter
\strip@pt\textwidth

\strip@pt\dimexpr 0.5\textwidth\relax
\makeatother
\end{document}

Stefan

[Curious George]

It works - thanks, Stefan!
Here is a minimal example in the context I was looking for:

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\documentclass{beamer}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\Tw}{\strip@pt\textwidth}
\newcommand{\Th}{\strip@pt\textheight}
\newcommand{\Thw}{\strip@pt\dimexpr 0.5\textwidth\relax}
\newcommand{\Thh}{\strip@pt\dimexpr 0.5\textheight\relax}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\begin{picture}(\Tw,\Th)
\put(\Thw,\Thh){\includegraphics{FILE}}
\end{picture}

\end{frame}
\end{document}

Guess its time for me to start learning raw TeX.

[CrazyHorse]

How can I get the get the number of points, but not the units, to include in a \begin{picture} command? Bonus would be to display numbers such as "0.5\textwidth" without units also, as arguments to the "\put" command.

use the picture package, then there is no need for stripping the dimension

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\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{picture}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}{foo}{}
\begin{picture}(\textwidth,\textheight)
\put(\textwidth,\textheight){\circle*{5}}
\end{picture}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

[Curious George]

Thanks, that works too.