Adding vertical lines to each side of a paragraph

Question

How can I add vertical lines to each side of a paragraph?

To illustrate, what I need is:

 some paragraphs...

|My paragraph begins|
|here and goes like |
|this... ~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
--------------------- <- Here is a page break
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|The paragraph ends |
|here.              |

Some other paragraphs...

I could not use any tabular or boxing commands since they don't allow page breaks inside.

Thanks in advance...

do you want the vertical lines in the margin or as in Gonzalo's answer inside the text area? — , Dec 10 '12 at 16:43

Gonzalo Medina · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-10T17:07:04.260

33

You can use the mdframed package; a little example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mdframed}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\newmdenv[
  topline=false,
  bottomline=false,
  skipabove=\topsep,
  skipbelow=\topsep
]{siderules}

\begin{document}

\lipsum[4]
\begin{siderules}
\lipsum[1-5]
\end{siderules}
\lipsum[4]

\end{document}

enter image description here

Here's a simplemodification placing the rules in the margin (now the text width inside the environment is equal to the default \textwidth):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mdframed}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\newmdenv[
  topline=false,
  bottomline=false,
  skipabove=\topsep,
  skipbelow=\topsep,
  leftmargin=-10pt,
  rightmargin=-10pt,
  innertopmargin=0pt,
  innerbottommargin=0pt
]{siderules}

\begin{document}

\lipsum[4]
\begin{siderules}
\lipsum[1-5]
\end{siderules}
\lipsum[4]

\end{document}

enter image description here

edited Dec 10 '12 at 17:07

answered Dec 10 '12 at 16:10

Gonzalo Medina

505,128

1

the first paragraphs in both cases are not indented, is this an after-effect of the use of mdframed? – Dec 10 '12 at 17:29
1

@jfbu yes, apparently the first line of the first paragraph is not indented by design. – Gonzalo Medina Dec 10 '12 at 17:37
3

@jfbu to get the first line indented, one can add \mbox{}\indent right after \begin{siderules}. – Gonzalo Medina Dec 10 '12 at 17:49
That's what I was really looking for. Thank you so much.. – Alper Dec 11 '12 at 12:22
This solution changed where my footnotes appeared – flamingpenguin Feb 12 '16 at 15:14
@GonzaloMedina: I fond that margin setting is inhibited by the use of [memoir] class. Is there any way to use the full potential of this package in [memoir] class? – Paolo Polesana May 10 '16 at 14:32
1

does not seem to be compatible with footnotes – Arnaud Dec 20 '16 at 17:29
If there is one footnote use \footnotemark and \footnotetext. With multiple footnotes use \footnotetext[number] to fix the numbering of the footnotes – Fred Rickey Dec 18 '18 at 06:07

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered May 04 '15 at 11:00

12

With results similar to Gonzalo's answer but made with tcolorbox.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\usepackage[most]{tcolorbox}

\newtcolorbox{tcbsiderules}[1][]{blanker, breakable, 
     left=3mm, right=3mm, top=1mm, bottom=1mm,
     borderline vertical={1pt}{0pt}{black},
     before upper=\indent, parbox=false, #1}


\begin{document}

\lipsum[1]
\begin{tcbsiderules}[oversize]
\lipsum[2-4]
\end{tcbsiderules}
\begin{tcbsiderules}
\lipsum[5-7]
\end{tcbsiderules}
\lipsum[8]

\end{document}

enter image description here

answered May 04 '15 at 11:00

Ignasi

136,588

I get the error: I do not know the key '/tcp/borderline vertical', to which you passed '{1pt}{0pt}{black}', and I am going to ignore it. Perhaps you misspelled it. – Jonathan Komar Jul 27 '15 at 12:00
@macmadness86 You need to update tcolorbox. According its documentation, borderline vertical was added on 20-Oct-2014. – Ignasi Jul 27 '15 at 16:02
Ok I see. I will probably not be able to use your option then, because I unfortunately cannot update the system (yet). Thanks for identifying the problem though! – Jonathan Komar Jul 27 '15 at 16:34
@macmadness86: If you don't want to update your system, just install tcoorbox.sty and ...code.tex files from ctan in your working folder. It's not the correct solution, but will work until you update the system. – Ignasi Jul 27 '15 at 17:51
more footnote friendly than mdframe, though it supercedes the footnote system by moving them at the end of the box (and thus uses a letter system to avoid confusions) – Arnaud Dec 20 '16 at 17:33

Adding vertical lines to each side of a paragraph

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