Formatting new environment with borders

Question

I have defined myself a new environment as below:

\newenvironment{myquote}{\list{}{\leftmargin=0.3in\rightmargin=0.3in}\item[]}{\endlist}

What I would like to do here is to be able to format this by adding borders. all borders needs to be solid but the left border needs to be thicker.

What is the way?

Answer 1

Here a solution with mdframed. You have two new keys: addleftlinewidth and addleftlinecolor to modify the additional setting:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{showframe}
\usepackage[framemethod=default]{mdframed}
\makeatletter
\mdf@do@lengthoption{addleftlinewidth==\z@}
\newcommand*\mdf@addleftlinecolor{\mdf@linecolor}
\define@key{mdf}{addleftlinecolor}[\mdf@linecolor]{%
  \def\mdf@addleftlinecolor{#1}%
}
\mdfsetup{settings={\addtolength{\mdf@leftmargin@length}{\mdf@addleftlinewidth@length}}}

\preto\md@frame@leftline@single{%
           \llap{\color{\mdf@addleftlinecolor}%{\mdf@middlelinecolor}%
               \rule[-\dp\@tempboxa-\mdf@innerbottommargin@length%
                        \ifbool{mdf@bottomline}{-\mdf@middlelinewidth@length}{}]%
                    {\mdf@addleftlinewidth@length}{\mdfboundingboxheight%
                         +\ifbool{mdf@bottomline}{\mdf@middlelinewidth@length}{0pt}
                         +\ifbool{mdf@topline}{\mdf@middlelinewidth@length}{0pt}}%
                  \hspace*{\mdf@middlelinewidth@length}}% 
}%
\makeatother
\mdfdefinestyle{cssstyle}{linecolor=blue,linewidth=2pt,%
                          addleftlinewidth=6pt,addleftlinecolor=red,
                         skipbelow=\topskip,skipabove=\topskip}

\newmdenv[style=cssstyle]{myquote}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\begin{myquote}[addleftlinewidth=6pt]
\lipsum[2]
\end{myquote}

Text

\begin{myquote}[addleftlinewidth=4pt,addleftlinecolor=yellow]
\lipsum[3]
\end{myquote}
\end{document}

At the moment only the single frame is supported.

Answer 2

You could use the adjustbox package to add a frame around it, then clip some sides of the frame to make them thinner.

I removed the quote and replaced it with a centered minipage, because that's simpler to handle with adjustbox. However, it can't be broken across pages.

There is no direct CSS-like way to define frames or borders. Some of the adjustbox keys allow for 1, 2 or 4 arguments like some CSS settings do (see the manual for more), but that's it. In LaTeX you basically always have to box the content in question and then draw lines around it dependent on its size. If you want anything special like a frame only on one side (or that one thicker) than you can also use a drawing package like TikZ or PSTricks to do this. Actually the mentioned mdframe package does uses on of these.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{adjustbox}

\newenvironment{myquote}{%
    \par\smallskip\par\noindent
    \adjustbox{%
        minipage=\linewidth-0.6in, % to get your 2x0.3in border
        fbox=2pt, % 2pt frame all around
        Clip=0pt 1pt 1pt 1pt, % remove 1pt of the bottom, top and right frame
        center % center the whole thing (around \linewidth)
    }\bgroup
}{%
    \egroup
    \par\smallskip\par
}

\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}

\lipsum[1]
\begin{myquote}
\lipsum[2]
\end{myquote}
\lipsum[3]

\end{document}

Answer 3

A tcolorbox example was missing. So, just for completion, next code shows how to produce a breakable gray bordered box with thicker left side.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[most]{tcolorbox}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\newtcolorbox{mybox}{%
     enhanced, breakable, arc=0pt, outer arc=0pt, leftrule=2mm, colback=white,
}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\begin{mybox}
\lipsum[2-6]
\end{mybox}
\lipsum[7]
\begin{mybox}
\lipsum[8]
\end{mybox}
\end{document}

Answer 4

if you do not need a pagebreak its really simple:

\documentclass{article} 
\usepackage{array,xcolor,lipsum}
\newenvironment{myquote}
  {\par\medskip\noindent\hspace*{0.3in}
   \tabular{!{\color{blue!40}%
              \vrule width 5pt}p{\dimexpr\linewidth-0.6in-2\tabcolsep-5pt\relax}|}\hline}
  {\\\hline\endtabular\par\medskip}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\begin{myquote}
\lipsum[1]
foo bar baz
\end{myquote}
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

Answer 5

Using mdframed is probably the way to go if you need to be able to cross page boundaries. Instead of thicker lines, you could also use tikz with shadows to highlight the desired edges. Here I have adapted the solution from New command for a height-flexible rect. Not only can you can adjust the values of xshift to get a thicker shadow, but the full power available of tikz is available to customize as you desire:

\documentclass[border=5pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shadows}

\tikzstyle{shadedbox} = [
  text width=0.97\linewidth,
  draw=black,
  shade, top color=white, bottom color=white,
  drop shadow={
    top color=black,
    bottom color=black,
    shadow xshift=-1.5pt,% add shading on left
    shadow yshift=-0.5pt,% 0pt removes shading at bottom
  },
  rectangle,
]

\newcommand{\myquote}[2][]{%
  \noindent%
  \begin{tikzpicture}%
    \node [shadedbox, #1] (box) {#2};%
  \end{tikzpicture}%
}

\newcommand{\ShortLoremIpsum}{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam turpis turpis, rutrum vel facilisis nec, scelerisque ut nisi. 

Proin et elit sapien. Ut non ante tellus. Pellentesque et tempus metus. Phasellus sit amet est nisl, a varius elit. Nunc nunc magna, molestie sit amet fermentum a, facilisis at urna.
}%


\begin{document}

\myquote{\ShortLoremIpsum}

\myquote[bottom color=yellow!10]{\ShortLoremIpsum}

\myquote[rounded corners=5pt, line width=1.0pt, draw=blue]{\ShortLoremIpsum}

\myquote[text width=0.6\linewidth, top color=red!10, densely dotted]{\ShortLoremIpsum}
\end{document}