How do I make a really long bullet point next not dissappear off the left of the page?

Question

I'm trying to put text as my "bullet point" but it's far too long as extends beyond the left of the page. What can I do to stop it doing this?

\begin{itemize}

  \item[\textsc{Contact Information}] 

   Address: Address \\

   Telephone: Telephone \\

   E-mail: Email

  \item[\textsc{Education}] 

   Etc

\end{itemize}

Are you looking for something like description or labeling(KOMA-script)? It isn't recommended at all to use long texts there. You could even be on the search for paragraph or minisec (KOMA-script). Can you show us a compilable real world example? — Johannes_B, Mar 02 '15 at 21:11
I'm trying to do a CV, where the "bullet points" are fields such as Contact Information or Education. — simplytheaverage, Mar 02 '15 at 21:18
Would this help? Make the lines of a description item line up — Johannes_B, Mar 02 '15 at 21:31
Also don't leave a blank line after \\ (Latex will be complaining about underfull hbox of badness 10000 (which is infinitely bad) — David Carlisle, Mar 02 '15 at 21:52

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

Borrowing from the page of Gonzalo at LaTeX Beamer: Define \itemsep globally, one can redefine indentation parameters like \leftmargin and \itemindent by patching the definition of \itemize.

EDIT: I also show another way with stacks.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xpatch,lipsum}
\usepackage[usestackEOL]{stackengine}

\def\defaultitemindent{0pt}
\def\defaultleftmargin{\the\leftmargin}
\xpatchcmd{\itemize}
  {\def\makelabel}
  {\setlength{\itemindent}{\defaultitemindent}%
   \setlength{\leftmargin}{\defaultleftmargin}%
   \setlength{\topsep}{0pt}\def\makelabel}
  {}
  {}
\begin{document}
\parindent 0pt
DEFAULT:
\begin{itemize}
\item[Really Long Text] \lipsum[4] 
\item[Short] text
\end{itemize}

STACK:
\begin{itemize}
\item[\smash{\Longunderstack[l]{Really\\ Long\\ Text}}] \lipsum[4] 
\item[Short] text
\end{itemize}

CHANGE ITEMINDENT
\def\defaultitemindent{15ex}
\begin{itemize}
\item[Really Long Text] \lipsum[4] 
\item[Short] text
\end{itemize}

CHANGE LEFTMARGIN
\def\defaultleftmargin{20ex}
\def\defaultitemindent{0ex}
\begin{itemize}
\item[Really Long Text] \lipsum[4] 
\item[Short] text
\end{itemize}

\lipsum[4]
\end{document}

enter image description here

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:32

2

You can use align=left option with the enumitem package, or thedescription environment:

enter image description here

Notes:

The showframe package was used just to show the page margins. It is not needed in your actual use case.

Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{showframe}
\begin{document}
\begin{itemize}
    \item[Really Long Label] Text 
\end{itemize}
\medskip
\begin{itemize}[align=left]
    \item[Really Long Label] Using \verb|align=left| option 
\end{itemize}
\medskip
\begin{description}
    \item[Really Long Label] Using \verb|description| 
\end{description}
\end{document}

edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:32

Community

1

answered Mar 02 '15 at 21:18

Peter Grill

223,288

But how can I align multiple fields (see original post)? – simplytheaverage Mar 02 '15 at 21:26
@RyanNg: It is not clear from your updated post how you want things aligned. Can you also post an image of the desired output. Also, perhaps you should consider using tabular. – Peter Grill Mar 02 '15 at 21:42

How do I make a really long bullet point next not dissappear off the left of the page?

2 Answers2

Notes:

Code: