Set the width of a fcolorbox

Question

Hi a very basic question I'm sure, but is there a way to tell \fcolorbox in xcolor to draw the box of a certain width.

For example with \fbox I would do

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\begin{document}
\framebox[1in]{text}

\fcolorbox{blue}{blue!40}{what do I do here?}

\end{document}

\fbox[1in]{text} would be incorrect; do you mean \framebox? — egreg, Apr 27 '13 at 12:39
Your example with \fbox doesn't work. You mean \framebox. — Ulrike Fischer, Apr 27 '13 at 12:42
sorry both @egreg and UlrikeFischer, quite right. editing it now. — Tahnoon Pasha, Apr 27 '13 at 13:56
What do you want to achieve? Maybe some packages can help you. — Marco Daniel, Apr 27 '13 at 14:17
Hi @MarcoDaniel thanks for your answer. I'm trying to produce a box of a specific height and width for subtitle sections of a table of descriptive information. Each is 2.5 in wide and 0.75cm high, and there are five of them in a four column by 32 row table. — Tahnoon Pasha, Apr 27 '13 at 22:46

egreg · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-04T09:01:57.993

There is no \framecolorbox macro, but you can easily build one with xparse:

\usepackage{xparse}
\NewDocumentCommand{\framecolorbox}{oommm}
 {% #1 = width (optional)
  % #2 = inner alignment (optional)
  % #3 = frame color
  % #4 = background color
  % #5 = text
  \IfValueTF{#1}
   {\IfValueTF{#2}
    {\fcolorbox{#3}{#4}{\makebox[#1][#2]{#5}}}
    {\fcolorbox{#3}{#4}{\makebox[#1]{#5}}}%
   }
   {\fcolorbox{#3}{#4}{#5}}%
 }

Complete example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{xparse}
\NewDocumentCommand{\framecolorbox}{oommm}
 {% #1 = width (optional)
  % #2 = inner alignment (optional)
  % #3 = frame color
  % #4 = background color
  % #5 = text
  \IfValueTF{#1}
   {%
    \IfValueTF{#2}
     {\fcolorbox{#3}{#4}{\makebox[#1][#2]{#5}}}
     {\fcolorbox{#3}{#4}{\makebox[#1]{#5}}}%
   }
   {\fcolorbox{#3}{#4}{#5}}%
 }

\begin{document}
\framecolorbox{blue}{blue!40}{what do I do here?}

\framecolorbox[4cm]{blue}{blue!40}{what do I do here?}

\framecolorbox[4cm][l]{blue}{blue!40}{what do I do here?}

\framecolorbox[4cm][r]{blue}{blue!40}{what do I do here?}

\framecolorbox[4cm][s]{blue}{blue!40}{what do I do here?}
\end{document}

enter image description here

You have the package xparse loaded twice. Why does it issue an Overfull \hbox when I use a width of say \textwidth? — azetina, Aug 03 '14 at 23:23
@azetina Thanks for noting the double loading (innocuous, but bad practice). The \framecolorbox macro produces a box with some padding, as usual for \framebox, so you have to take into account \fboxsep and \fboxrule. — egreg, Aug 04 '14 at 09:01

Set the width of a fcolorbox

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