Overlaying text boxes

Question

I'm working on a writing project that requires some unusual typesetting.

One of the things I want to achieve is to write two lines of text in the place of one, deliberately overlaying them. Basically, like creating two text layers in Photoshop or InDesign and putting one over the other.

Yes, this will look a mess, but I have my reasons for wanting to experiment with it.

Can I achieve this in LaTeX?

There are many possible approaches. Are there any constraints to which you need to conform? Example, both sentences share one word that serves as the overlap anchor? — Steven B. Segletes, Sep 07 '21 at 20:07
...for example, overlaying similar words may require some specific overlapping: First sentence of the text\llap{More text}\rlap{.} over it. — Werner, Sep 07 '21 at 20:08

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 07 '21 at 20:05

2

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\begin{document}
    FIRST SENTENCE \hspace*{-2cm} \textbf{MORE TEXT OVER IT}
\end{document}

answered Sep 07 '21 at 20:05

SebGlav

19,186

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 07 '21 at 20:10

If you know where you want the overlap to start in terms of the words, \rlap could be useful:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
%\url{https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/614535/86}
\begin{document}
    FIRST \rlap{SENTENCE}{\tiny MORE TEXT OVER IT}
\end{document}

(the \tiny is just to show the different texts a bit more clearly)

Overlaying text boxes

2 Answers2