Comment-like environments and spacing

Question

I often need to "turn off" environments. One way I do this is below in my minimal working example:

\documentclass{article}
\newenvironment{nothing}{\setbox0\vbox\bgroup}
{\egroup}
\begin{document}
Hello, this is some text.
\begin{nothing}
  This is nothing.
\end{nothing}
More text.
Hello, this is some text.
More text.
\end{document}

However, as you can see,

Some space is added. How do I fix this?

\ignorespaces after \egroup perhaps. Though the comment package might be better — daleif, Jan 27 '16 at 18:25

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 27 '16 at 18:25

7

Place \unskip after \egroup to make the two invocations behave the same.

\documentclass{article}

\newenvironment{nothing}{\setbox0\vbox\bgroup}
{\egroup\unskip}

\begin{document}
Hello, this is some text.
\begin{nothing}
  This is nothing.
\end{nothing}
More text.

Hello, this is some text.
More text.
\end{document}

answered Jan 27 '16 at 18:25

Steven B. Segletes

237,551

Ah - this works for my "minimal example" but apparently it is slightly too minimal... But the other solution below works for me! – Bart Snapp Jan 28 '16 at 15:01
@BartSnapp I agree that egreg's answer is better. I was the first to upvote it when I saw it appear. – Steven B. Segletes Jan 28 '16 at 15:09

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 27 '16 at 18:47

You need \ignorespacesafterend; but you can consider the comment package.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{comment}

\newenvironment{nothing}
  {\setbox0\vbox\bgroup}
  {\egroup\ignorespacesafterend}

\begin{document}
Hello, this is some text.
\begin{nothing}
  This is nothing.
\end{nothing}
More text.

Hello, this is some text.
More text.

Hello, this is some text.
\begin{comment}
  This is nothing.
\end{comment}
More text.

Hello, this is some text.
More text.
\end{document}

Comment-like environments and spacing

2 Answers2

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