8

How could one get a displayed equation inside a list environment, say itemize, so that the equation is both centered horizontally and on the same line as the bullet, but with the bullet still on the left? Trying \item \begin{center} \( \displaystyle \int x \ dx = \frac{x^2}{2} + C \) \end{center} centers the bullet as well as the equation.

This is a somewhat frivolous question, since I don't actually want to use the answer. I personally would use \item \( \displaystyle \int x \ dx = \frac{x^2}{2} + C \) and do without the horizontal centering. But I'm currently at a conference where I've seen several beamer presentations that clearly involved something like \item \[ \int x \ dx = \frac{x^2}{2} + C \], which made me curious how one could do what I asked, if one really wanted to.

I really wasn't sure how to tag this. Please feel free to retag.

Stefan Kottwitz
  • 231,401
Mark Meckes
  • 17,791
  • Why would you want your equations centred inside an itemize environment? I can't understand it... – Seamus Sep 15 '10 at 14:51
  • As I said, I wouldn't... – Mark Meckes Sep 15 '10 at 15:05
  • Perhaps if you are making a presentation about different possible equations, and wanted to use the bullets to indicate that they aren't equations meant to be satisfied simultaneously? (That is, using the itemize environment as formatting to communicate something like logical disjunction?) – Niel de Beaudrap Sep 15 '10 at 15:31

1 Answers1

7

Would

\item ~ \hfill \( ... \) \hfill

not work? Primitive, perhaps, but effective just for the purposes of alignment.

Unless the formulae are quite long, so that each one comes close enough to the left to be closely associated with it's corresponding bullet point, I'm not sure that I would want to do this, though. Of course, this could also be solved by doing something like

\item \begin{minipage}{0.4\textwidth}\centering \( ... \) \end{minipage}

or something similar, to center the equations on a vertical axis which is closer to the bullet points.

Niel de Beaudrap
  • 14,253
  • You just beat me hitting the submit button. Nice solution, specially the one using a minipage! – Juan A. Navarro Sep 15 '10 at 12:39
  • I don't understand what the point of using a minipage is here. Your first suggestion with a \displaystyle seems much better to me. – TH. Sep 16 '10 at 09:56
  • The point is to create a box of specified width, strictly less than the distance from the left margin (of the list) to the right margin. Doing so leaves empty space on the right, so that the central axis of the boxes is further to the left. – Niel de Beaudrap Sep 16 '10 at 12:48