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From: eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: an interesting problem
Message-ID: <1990Dec6.173014.1116@csrd.uiuc.edu>
Date: 6 Dec 90 17:30:14 GMT
References: <90Dec5.204808est.6898@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
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Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
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djmcclur@cs.toronto.edu ("David J. McClurkin") writes:

>1) I need to create a macro that will display text as follows:

>        |<----- preceeding text goes from here to here -------------->|

>        Both of these boxes contain         The right boundary
>        flush left text.                    of this box (i.e. the right

>The problem seems to be that one cannot create a vbox or parbox whose
>width is simply that of the longest line inside (its "natural" width).

I fail to see what the problem and the above statement have to do
with each other.  What is the `preceding text'? If that is the last line of a 
paragraph I agree that you have a small problem. Otherwise, it
is something that you put there, so you know how big it is.
Give me some more info.

>2) I want to use headings that look like:

>   4.1 This is the Heading.  This is the following text of the section...

You are using LaTeX? Macros \section, \subsection, et cetera
are implemented in the style files in terms of a primitive
\@startsection that is specified as follows:
% \@startsection {NAME}{LEVEL}{INDENT}{BEFORESKIP}{AFTERSKIP}{STYLE}
%            optional * [ALTHEADING]{HEADING}
%    Generic command to start a section.
%    NAME       : e.g., 'subsection'
%    LEVEL      : a number, denoting depth of section -- e.g., chapter=1,
%                 section = 2, etc.
%    INDENT     : Indentation of heading from left margin
%    BEFORESKIP : Absolute value = skip to leave above the heading.
%                 If negative, then paragraph indent of text following
%                 heading is suppressed.
%    AFTERSKIP  : if positive, then skip to leave below heading, else
%                 negative of skip to leave to right of run-in heading.
%    STYLE      : commands to set style
You see that reversing the skip given as AFTERSKIP will
give you the effect you are after. Dig around in the style files a
bit.

>I'm hoping that the answers to both questions are trivial.

'Fraid not.

>Thanks in advance for helping me.

You're welcome.

>Dave McClurkin

Victor.