[OS X TeX] Geometry package, lists and hfill weirdness

[Charilaos Skiadas]

Thanks Frank for the detailed explanation! These are the subtleties  
of TeX that I try not to think about too much ;). I like the \hbox  
solution, which was also suggested to me off-list. Since I was in a  
hurry, I ended up using {\ } to put a small space at the end.

Haris Skiadas
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hanover College

On Oct 15, 2007, at 12:34 PM, Frank STENGEL wrote:

>
> Le 15 oct. 07 à 15:34, Charilaos Skiadas a écrit :
>
> <snip>
>
>>
>> So two questions:
>> 1. Is this a known behavior of the geometry package, and do you  
>> know of a way to circumvent it?
>
> Actually no: what geometry does is change the (logical) paper  
> margins. The fact is that on an A4 sheet, article uses rather large  
> margins. So in any case the ``there!'' are truly placed at the  
> right margin. What you may want to do is add a \hbox{} after the  
> hfill so that the skip (hfill) is not gobbled (unskipped) when the  
> line is cut.
>
> Actually what happens (more or less) is that when TeX cuts a line  
> it kills any white space (stretchable or no) at the end of the  
> line. If this line is the last line of a paragraph, it adds the  
> glue (stretchable space) defined in \parfillskip, which here is  
> equivalent to a \hfil (one l, infinitely less springy than a  
> \hfill) So you end up with single line paragraphs of the form:
>
> <left margin> \hfill Hi \hfill There! \hfil <right margin>
>
> The \hfil being weak, it will be smashed by the \hfills therefore  
> giving the impression of:
>
> <left margin> \hfill Hi \hfill There! <right margin>
>
>> 2. How can I make the \filltwo calls in the enumerate environment  
>> distribute their arguments equidistant in a single line?
>
> Try this:
>
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage[left=1cm,right=1cm,top=1cm,bottom=1cm]{geometry}
> \newcommand{\filltwo}[2]{\par\hfill #1 \hfill {#2} \hfill\hbox{}}
> \begin{document}
>   \begin{enumerate}
>     \item In list:\par
>     \hfill Hi \hfill there! \hfill\hbox{}
>     \item Also in list:
>     \filltwo{Hi}{there!}
>   \end{enumerate}
>   %Another way would be to use hfil
>   \par\hfil Hi \hfil there!\par % notice, no tailing \hfil, it is  
> added by \parfillskip...
>   \filltwo{Hi}{there!}
> \end{document}
>
> Another way would be to use boxes such as :
>
> \hbox to 10cm{\hfill Hi \hfill There! \hfill}
>
> HTH
>
> -- 
> Frank STENGEL (fstengel<at>mac.com)
>





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