Vertical alignment in new macro

Question

I have the following macro:

\newcommand{\mycommand}[4]{
\begin{tabbing}
    \hspace{2cm} \= \kill
    \textbf{#1} \>  {#3} \\
    \textbf{#2} \>      
            \begin{minipage}{\smallertextwidth}
                \vspace{1mm}
                \textbf{label:} #4
            \end{minipage}
        \end{tabbing}

}

what happens is that the string given by \textbf{#2} is vertically aligned to the middle of the minipage on its side, while I'd like to have it aligned to the top of the minipage. How can achieve such an alignment?

Why do you need a minipage? Will the text in #4 span multiple lines (like a paragraph)? — Werner, Nov 28 '15 at 02:02
I just modified an environment I found in a document template. The minipage is needed because in the tabbing environment lines are not broken: a long sentence would be on a single line causing overfull hbox — dario, Nov 28 '15 at 13:10

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

My suggestion would be a to use a tabular-like construction. And, to avoid using arbitrary lengths, you can leave the length-calculations up to LaTeX when using tabularx:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[nopar]{lipsum}
\usepackage{tabularx}

\newcommand{\mycommand}[4]{%
  \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{@{}>{\bfseries\arraybackslash}p{2cm} X @{}}
    #1 & #3 \\
    #2 & \textbf{label:} #4
  \end{tabularx}}

\begin{document}

\noindent
\mycommand{One}{Two}{Three}{Four}

\noindent
\mycommand{One}{Two}{\lipsum[3]}{\lipsum[4]}

\end{document}

The p- and X-columns have a default top-alignment with the surrounding row entries.

The choice of using tabularx (or something tabular) above a minipage stems from the typical problem of baseline alignment. It's just easier/more convenient when using a table. See How to keep a constant baseline skip when using minipages (or \parboxes)?](How to keep a constant baselineskip when using minipages (or \parboxes)?)

Note that the above construction will not break across the page boundary. That was also the case with your minipage construction, so I doubt it would be a problem in your use case

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 28 '15 at 10:19

While tabbing can reveal useful at times, it is not for this application, where a simpler tabular environment suffices:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{lipsum} % just for the example

\newlength{\mycommandwidth}
\setlength{\mycommandwidth}{2cm}% or what you prefer as default

\newcommand{\mycommand}[5][\mycommandwidth]{% <--- don't forget it
  \par\noindent
  \begin{tabular}{@{} l p{\dimexpr\columnwidth-2\tabcolsep-#1} @{}}
    \makebox[#1][l]{\bfseries #2} & #4 \\
    \makebox[#1][l]{\bfseries #3} & \textbf{label:} #5
  \end{tabular}%
  \par
}

\begin{document}

\mycommand{One}{Two}{Three}{Four}

\mycommand[1cm]{One}{Two}{Three}{Four}

\mycommand{One}{Two}{\lipsum[2]}{\lipsum[2]}

\mycommand[1cm]{One}{Two}{\lipsum[2]}{\lipsum[2]}

\end{document}

Vertical alignment in new macro

2 Answers2