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<html>
<head>
<title>Help On LaTeX Spaces and Boxes</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#000099" vlink="#cc0000" alink="#cc0000">
<h1><font size="-2">Hypertext Help with LaTeX</font><br><font color="#cc0000">Spaces and Boxes</font></h1>
<h2>"Visible" Spaces</h2>
You can generate a "visible" space, generally indicated as a small, squat
"u," and useful in didactic material by using the
<a href="ltx-342.html"><tt>\verb</tt></a> command or the
<a href="ltx-79.html"><tt>verbatim</tt></a> environment.
<h2>Non-breaking Spaces</h2>
To generate a space where you do not want to allow a break for a new line use a
<tt>~</tt>. For example,
<pre>
<tt>... in Table~2 and Fig.~3 ...</tt>
</pre>
<h2>Controlling Space in Text</h2>
The ends of words and sentences are marked
in the input by one or more spaces. LaTeX
treats multiple spaces as if they were a single space. An end of line
is also equivalent to a space; however, you can end a line
<em>without</em> a space by using a
<a href="ltx-434.html"><tt>%</tt></a> (anything following the
<tt>%</tt> is considered to be
a comment). LaTeX generally ignores spaces at the beginning of lines.
<p>
Paragraphs are
delineated by a <em>blank line</em> -- one which does not contain even
comments (anything following a
<a href="ltx-434.html"><tt>%</tt></a> until the end of a line is
a comment). See also the <a href="ltx-293.html"><tt>\par</tt></a>
command.
<p>
LaTeX leaves extra space after punctuation, such as the period which
ends a sentence,
but, it uses a very simple rule (periods end sentences unless
they follow a capital letter) so
sometimes it needs a little help in determining when
this is required. (However, see
<a href="frenchsp.html"><tt>\frenchspacing</tt></a>.)
Use
<ul>
<li><a href="ltx-431.html"><tt>\<space></tt></a> to create an ordinary
interword space
<li><a href="ltx-432.html"><tt>\@</tt></a> before punctuation to force an "end of
sentence" space
</ul>
<p>
It is sometimes necessary to add a little additional space, such as between
consecutive single and double <a href="ltx-433.html">quotation marks</a>.
The <a href="ltx-185.html"><tt>\,</tt></a> command can be used for this purpose.
<p>
Also see
<ul>
<li><a href="ltx-430.html">Dashes</a>
<li><a href="ellipses.html">Ellipses</a>
<li><a href="ltx-433.html">Quotation Marks</a>
<li><a href="ltx-118.html">Spacing in Math Mode</a>
</ul>
<h2>Spaces after Commands</h2>
Most LaTeX commands consist of a <tt>\</tt> followed by a string of
letters. The end of such commands is indicated by a nonletter, i.e.,
a number, a punctuation mark, a space, or the end of the line. If the
command produces text and you want a space to follow this text, you cannot
just leave a space after the command; that space is treated as the
end-of-command signal and several spaces are equivalent to one in LaTeX.
To generate a space after a text-producing command you can use
<a href="ltx-431.html"><tt>\<space></tt></a>.
<p>
For example
<pre>
<tt>I wrote this on <a href="ltx-330.html">\today</a> .</tt>
</pre>
generates "I wrote this on Jul 7, 1995." Note that the spaces
between <tt>\today</tt> and the period in the input do not generate
any space in the output. On the other hand,
<pre>
<tt>\today\ was a good day.</tt>
</pre>
or
<pre>
<tt>\today \ was a good day.</tt>
</pre>
will both produce "Jul 7, 1995 was a good day." The
<a href="ltx-431.html"><tt>\<space></tt></a>
here is necessary to produce space between the date and "was."
<p>
An alternatative is to use braces to terminate the command. For
example, <tt>\today{} was ...</tt> is equivalent to the above.
<h3>Invisible commands</h3>
Some commands do not produce any output text. LaTeX treats these as
words of zero length and may try to leave spaces both before and
after this "word" which will generally produce an undesirable gap.
This can be avoided by attaching these commands directly to the
preceding word, i.e., leaving no spaces.
<H2>Some commands which create or manipulate space</H2>
<ul>
<li><A href="ltx-198.html">\addvspace</A>
<li><A href="ltx-206.html">\bigskip</A>
<li><A href="ltx-220.html">\dotfill</A>
<li><A href="ltx-238.html">\hfill</A>
<li><A href="ltx-240.html">\hrulefill</A>
<li><A href="ltx-241.html">\hspace</A>
<li><A href="ltx-266.html">\medskip</A>
<li><A href="ltx-306.html">\rule</A>
<li><A href="ltx-318.html">\smallskip</A>
<li><A href="ltx-345.html">\vfill</A>
<li><A href="ltx-347.html">\vspace</A>
</ul>
See also
<ul>
<li><a href="ltx-118.html">spacing in math mode</a>
</ul>
<h2>Boxes</h2>
A box is an object which TeX treats as a single character; it is therefore
not broken across lines or pages.
<p>
The following commands create or manipulate boxes
<ul>
<li><A href="ltx-226.html">\fbox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-237.html">\framebox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-262.html">\makebox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-265.html">\mbox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-277.html">\newsavebox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-294.html">\parbox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-302.html">\raisebox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-307.html">\savebox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-307.html">\sbox</A>
<li><A href="ltx-337.html">\usebox</A>
</ul>
<hr>
Back to the <a href="ltx-2.html">Table of Contents</a>
<hr>
<address>
Revised: Sheldon Green, 29 Sep 1995.
</address>
</body>
</html>
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