How can I float some text to the right of the first line of a paragraph?

Question

I'd like to put some right-aligned text on the first line of my paragraph, and have the rest of the text wrap around it, like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed      {right-aligned text}
do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam,
quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat...

How can I achieve this?

Do you mean kind of like a wrapfig? – cmhughes Oct 06 '11 at 21:23 — cmhughes, Oct 06 '11 at 21:23

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:32

Use the wrapfig package:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}% http://ctan.org/pkg/geometry
\usepackage{wrapfig}% http://ctan.org/pkg/wrapfig
\usepackage{xparse}% http://ctan.org/pkg/xparse
\usepackage{lipsum}% http://ctan.org/pkg/lipsum
\begin{document}
\NewDocumentCommand{\rtext}{O{1} O{5em} m}{%
  \begin{wrapfigure}[#1]{r}[0pt]{#2}%
    \begin{minipage}{#2}\raggedleft#3\end{minipage}%
  \end{wrapfigure}%
}
\rtext[5][50pt]{Here is some right-aligned text}%
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

enter image description here

The above code provides \rtext[<lines>][<width>]{<stuff>} that typesets <stuff> right-aligned (actually \raggedleft) in <lines> lines of width <width> (the default is 1 line with width 5em, although this can be changed). Both <lines> and <width> are optional arguments.

geometry was used with the option showframe to show the alignment of the text. lipsum provided dummy text, while xparse provides an easy means for specifying mixed optional/mandatory arguments (and defaults).

Thanks! Is there a way to make it automatically adjust the width to fit its contents? — jtbandes, Oct 07 '11 at 02:05
Also, what's the point of the minipage? It seems to work without it. — jtbandes, Oct 07 '11 at 02:24
You could try to use the varwidth package to adjust the width automatically based on the contents. The minipage was just to provide a box to put stuff in; I wasn't sure how much content you wanted in the {right-aligned text}. — Werner, Oct 07 '11 at 07:45

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:34

0

Also see both answers to Float right aligned text around a text snippet in first line of a paragraph. Wrapfig does not work well with enumerate and itemize while \parshape and birectional layout (e.g. \luatextextdir and \beginR) can both handle this case as well.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:34

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answered Nov 02 '14 at 10:32

frafl

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How can I float some text to the right of the first line of a paragraph?

2 Answers2