3

Friends, I have to put some images in the marginal notes of a text. Unfortunately, I have some issues with the image alignment. Consider this minimum example:

\documentclass[oneside]{book}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\parskip 7.2pt

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{bookman}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\DeclareRobustCommand*\standup{%
\begin{flushright}
\includegraphics[scale=.15]{standup.pdf}%
\end{flushright}
}%

\begin{document}

\reversemarginpar

\noindent Hi there, this is my first line. No real meaning here.

\noindent\marginpar{\standup}Hello, this is a short line.

\noindent\lipsum[4]

\noindent\marginpar{\standup}This is probably another long line to be broken into two lines. Let's see if it happens again.

\noindent\lipsum[4]

\noindent\marginpar{\standup}There we go, this line is supposed to be broken into three lines, so I need to add lots of text here in order to achieve that. Let's see if it happens now.

\noindent\lipsum[4]

\noindent\marginpar{\standup}Now I want the text to be broken into four or more lines. How was your day? Mine was good, despite the fact these images don't want to be my friends. So how about now? Now I want the text to be broken into four or more lines.

\end{document}

The standup.pdf file (which is the proper image) can be downloaded here. The output is as follows:

My text 1

The images are aligned with the baseline of the first line. I'd like to achieve the following alignment rule:

  1. If the paragraph has one line, align the center of the image with the center of that line.
  2. If the paragraph has two lines, align the center of the image in half the height of those two lines.
  3. If the paragraph has three or more lines, align the center of the image with the center of the second line.

I hope this image can visually clarify these rules:

My text 2

I tried to manually hack their position using \vspace, but I had no success.

I wonder if someone could enlight me on this issue. I'm open to all ideas, this code was my first attempt. I'm also aware that these rules might be confusing or annoying to be defined, so even a manual adjustment is welcome. =)

lockstep
  • 250,273
Paulo Cereda
  • 44,220
  • This is probably not what you want, but I've done something similar with these http://www.lightandmatter.com/books.html illustrated textbooks. The latex code and scripts for doing it are here http://repo.or.cz/w/light-and-matter.git . The reason I say it's probably not what you want is that it's a big, complex system. –  Jul 25 '11 at 18:10
  • Thanks @Ben, I'll take a look. =) – Paulo Cereda Jul 25 '11 at 18:22

2 Answers2

4

Here is a possibility:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{environ}

\makeatletter
\renewenvironment{fitem}[1]
  {\par\def\whichimage{#1}\Collect@Body\process@fitem}{\par}
\def\process@fitem#1{%
  \setbox0=\vbox{#1\par\xdef\nlines{\the\prevgraf}}%
  \begingroup\clubpenalties=4 10000 10000 10000 0
    \ifcase\nlines\or % no empty paragraphs
      \placefigure{0}\or\placefigure{.5}\else\placefigure{1}\fi
    #1\par\endgroup}
\def\placefigure#1{\leavevmode\smash{\makebox[0pt][r]{%
  \vbox{\hbox{\pauloimage{\whichimage}}
        \vskip-7.2pt % half the height of the images
        \vskip.5ex % compensation for centering at a line
        \vskip-#1\baselineskip % shift down
        }\space}}}
\makeatother


\def\pauloimage#1{\includegraphics[width=14.4pt,height=14.4pt]{try}}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\parskip=7.2pt \parindent=0pt

\begin{document}
\lipsum[2]

\begin{fitem}{stand}
This is a one line paragraph.
\end{fitem}

\begin{fitem}{sit}
This should be a two line paragraph. This is probably another long line to be broken into 
two lines. Let's see if it happens again.
\end{fitem}

\begin{fitem}{kneel}
\lipsum*[2]
\end{fitem}
\end{document}

Of course you have to define correctly \pauloimage. Page breaks are allowed only after the third line.

The paragraph is typeset twice: the first time for getting the number of lines. I've used \prevgraf assuming that it's a plain paragraph. If it's not, then something else must be devised.

egreg
  • 1,121,712
  • Absolutely fantastic! And best of all, I understood the code! =) Thanks a million for this elegant answer! – Paulo Cereda Jul 26 '11 at 11:28
  • I used this nice idea in one document where I had a footnote in the paragraph. Since the paragraph is typeset twice, than one footnote is "skipped". Is there a better idea to avoid this, rather than saving the footnote counter value before \Collect@Body\process@fitem and restoring it immediately after? This works, but it is a very ad hoc solution for footnotes only. – Axel Krypton Dec 21 '20 at 14:00
  • @AxelKrypton You could redefine \footnote inside the measuring \vbox to just do the restoring of the counter. – egreg Dec 21 '20 at 14:12
  • Indeed. I was wondering whether there was a more general mechanism not for footnotes only. I tried to look around another bit and, actually, another very good answer of yours made me discover \savecounters@ and \restorecounters@ from amsmath. If having such a package included is not a problem, I would then say that \vbox{\savecounters@#1\par\xdef\nlines{\the\prevgraf}\restorecounters@} might be a good way to go. Acting on a particular command like \footnote inside vbox is still a simpler approach, though. – Axel Krypton Dec 21 '20 at 15:15
2

You can measure the height of a paragraph by setting it in a \vbox, so you could design a macro with two arguments: the paragraph and the image. If you declared a new box \para, and then \setbox\para=\vbox{#1} you can then test \ht\para against the current \baselineskip and see how many lines it took. Then reset the paragraph and use \marginpar with a suitable \raisebox on the \includegraphics.

Werner
  • 603,163
Peter Flynn
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