Adding symbol before some labels in description

Question

I want to do something similar to this question, but with a description environment. That is, I want to add an asterisk (or something) before the label text of some of the items in a description environment. As in the accepted answer on that question (among others), I want the labels to be vertically aligned with each other, and the asterisks to appear farther left, which is why I don't just write \item[*label text] on the special items.

I'm already using enumitem if that's helpful.

\newcommand{\lstar}{\llap{*}} and then \item[\lstar label text]. — Sergei Golovan, Dec 20 '17 at 15:22
@SergeiGolovan That's perfect, thanks. I'd happily accept that if you made it an answer. — Mark Meckes, Dec 20 '17 at 15:38

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 20 '17 at 15:44

You could add something with zero length to the label text. One possibility is to define

\newcommand{\lstar}{\llap{*}}

and then use it

\item[\lstar label text] item content

If \llap seems to be too PlainTeX, you can use

\newcommand{\lstar}{\makebox[0pt][r]{*}}

instead.

Adding symbol before some labels in description

1 Answers1