Discussion:
(LaTeX) This doesn't work -- \mbox{ First Line \\ Second Line}
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HenHanna
2024-07-19 05:31:29 UTC
Permalink
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?

This apparently doesn't work.

\mbox{ First Line \\
Second Line}



___________________________
in Comp.Text.Tex ... i only see CTAN (update) announcements

can i ask LaTeX questions?
Ulrich D i e z
2024-07-19 13:02:06 UTC
Permalink
[Follow-up to: comp.text.tex]
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
This apparently doesn't work.
\mbox{ First Line \\
Second Line}
[ de.comp.pdf and de.comp.tex actually are German-language newsgroups. ]

\mbox creates a box.

TeX switches the typesetting-mode to "restricted horizontal mode" for
creating the content of the box.
TeX switches the typesetting-mode to "horizontal mode" for placing the
created box into the surrounding text.

The further typesetting-mode is the typesetting-mode where TeX does no
line-breaking at all but creates a box where material is typeset
horizontally/from left to right.
The latter typesetting-mode is the typesetting-mode where TeX creates
paragraphs and hereby breaks text into lines automatically.

The circumstance that the content of the box produced by \mbox is
typeset in restricted horizontal mode implies that no things are done
that concern vertical adjustment as is the case, e.g., with line-breaking.
Thus no line-breaking is done with things that are typeset in the
typesetting-mode "restricted horizontal mode".

Different commands for producing boxes and switching the typesettig-mode
when placing them into the document's surrounding text are explained at
Tex - LaTeX Stack Exchange - question "What are the different kinds of
boxes in (La)TeX?":
https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/83936


With your scenario I suggest placing two \hboxes holding single lines of
text into \vtop or \vcenter or \vbox. Due to \vtop/\vcenter/\vbox the
single \hboxes are typeset in internal vertical mode, i.e. atop each other.

The box itself, whose content consists of the two \hboxes that are
typeset atop each other, is to be placed into the surrounding text.

With \vtop the baseline of the first line/the baseline of the top line
of that box itself is aligned with the baseline of the line of the
surrounding text which TeX is about to produce.
With \vbox the baseline of the last line/the baseline of the bottom line
of that box itself is aligned with the baseline of the line of the
surrounding text which TeX is about to produce.
With \vcenter the vertical center of that box itself is aligned with the
math-axis of the line of the surrounding text which TeX is about to
produce. (The math axis of a line of text, simplified speaking, is the
vertical position where in the line of text in question the bar of a
fraction would occur.)
Although the box produced by `\vcenter` is typeset in internal vertical
mode (where you can use \hbox{...} for having Tex switch to restricted
horizontal mode), you need to have TeX to switch to math-mode for
placing that box into the line of ttext of the surrounding text.



\documentclass {article}

\begin{document}

Text
\fbox{%
\vtop{%
\hbox{First Line}%
\hbox{Second Line}%
}%
} Text

Text
\fbox{%
$\vcenter{%
\hbox{First Line}%
\hbox{Second Line}%
}$%
} Text

Text
\fbox{%
\vbox{%
\hbox{First Line}%
\hbox{Second Line}%
}%
} Text

\end{document}
Post by HenHanna
___________________________
in Comp.Text.Tex ... i only see CTAN (update) announcements
can i ask LaTeX questions?
Yes, of course you can ask questions related to LaTeX at comp.text.tex.

The traffic at comp.text.tex has reduced over the years because many
people nowadays ask their LaTeX-related questions at
TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange: https://tex.stackexchange.com/ .

Many of the regulars of comp.text.tex and many developers of LaTeX
packages and members of the LaTeX Project Team also are at
TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange.

TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange in my humble opinion is much more welcoming
than other communities of the Stack Exchange netwok. Also the
downvoting-policy is different from that of many other communities of
the Stack Exchange netwok: At TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange people are
rather reluctant in the matter of downvoting because a harsh
downvoting-policy would scare off people unnecessarily.

However, TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange is a question-answer platform and
not intended for dialogue while when starting out with LaTeX, you might
like to have the opportunity to have dialogues and ask questions that
are related to answers you have received. There is a chat at Tex - LaTeX
Stack Exchange also, which is sort of separate from the
question-answer-thingie, but I think I think comp.text.tex is more
suitable for this.

Sincerely

Ulrich
Scott Pakin
2024-07-20 00:23:27 UTC
Permalink
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
This apparently doesn't work.
            \mbox{ First Line \\
                   Second Line}
\mbox is for single-line text only. How about using a tabular?

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}[t]{@{}ll@{}}
First Line \\
Second Line
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

-- Scott
HenHanna
2024-07-20 00:45:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
This apparently doesn't work.
             \mbox{ First Line \\
                    Second Line}
\mbox is for single-line text only.  How about using a tabular?
    \documentclass{article}
    \begin{document}
      First Line \\
      Second Line
    \end{tabular}
    \end{document}
-- Scott
thank you.... (if and) When i get serious about
glueing 1stLine and 2ndLine together, i may end up using Minipage.
Jeff Barnett
2024-07-20 03:41:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
This apparently doesn't work.
            \mbox{ First Line \\
                   Second Line}
___________________________
in Comp.Text.Tex   ...  i only see CTAN (update) announcements
            can i ask   LaTeX  questions?
Look up the envir
Axel Berger
2024-07-20 07:37:05 UTC
Permalink
Look up the environment minipage.
Or in this case perhaps parbox
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Ulrich D i e z
2024-07-20 12:41:58 UTC
Permalink
[Followup-To: comp.text.tex]
Post by Axel Berger
Look up the environment minipage.
Or in this case perhaps parbox
In case you want the box with the first and the second line to have the
natural width of the widest of the two lines, minipage-environment and
\parbox-command, where you are to specify the desired width explicitly,
might turn out cumbersome.

Sincerely

Ulrich
Peter Flynn
2024-07-24 09:31:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
This apparently doesn't work.
            \mbox{ First Line \\
                   Second Line}
That's because \\ is for prematurely ending a line, not for combining them.

It's also used (differently) in tabular setting to signal the end of a row.

Can you explain what you want to do, with a worked example?
"want 2 lines to stay together" doesn't give enough information.

Peter
Antonio Marques
2024-07-24 14:02:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter Flynn
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
This apparently doesn't work.
            \mbox{ First Line \\
                   Second Line}
That's because \\ is for prematurely ending a line, not for combining them.
It's also used (differently) in tabular setting to signal the end of a row.
Can you explain what you want to do, with a worked example?
"want 2 lines to stay together" doesn't give enough information.
It's very difficult to get information out of the OP, but from what I've
seen elsewhere the main issue was widow / orphan control.

(That would indicate that anything focusing on those specific two lines is
wrong from the start, as layout should work automatically before needing to
be manual.)

Not having touched latex for 20 years now, I have no idea where to look,
but I'm reasonably sure it shouldn't be difficult.
Eberhard W Lisse
2024-07-25 15:37:36 UTC
Permalink
I don't think crossposting to 5 groups two of which not in English will
help.

el
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
[...]
HenHanna
2024-07-25 19:00:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Eberhard W Lisse
I don't think crossposting to 5 groups two of which not in English will
help.
el
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
[...]
if i want 2 words to stay together... First~Second
(and/or \mbox{...} )
Shouldn't there be an easy way to do that for 2 lines?



actually... i like studying German (and French)...
so i wouldn't mind getting a short response in German.



Fritzchen geht traurig zur Mama: "Mama! Nie glaubt mir jemand etwas!"
"Nein Bua! Des glaub ich Dir jetzt gar nicht!"
Ulrich D i e z
2024-07-25 20:51:16 UTC
Permalink
[Followup-To: comp.text.tex]
Post by HenHanna
Post by Eberhard W Lisse
I don't think crossposting to 5 groups two of which not in English will
help.
el
Post by HenHanna
i want 2 lines to stay together... How do i do it?
[...]
if i want 2 words to stay together... First~Second
(and/or \mbox{...} )
Shouldn't there be an easy way to do that for 2 lines?
If you want to avoid clubs and/or widows while TeX is in horizontal mpde
where it does the line-breaking for you, you can do

\widowpenalty=10000
\clubpenalty)10000

But when TeX is in the situation of having to choose between several
infinitely bad possibilities of page-breaking it might choose the one
where you get a widow or a club anyway.

If you want lines of an entire paragraph to not be broken across pages,
with LaTeX put that paragraph into a minipage environment or into a
\parbox and specify, e.g., the width \textwidth or \linewidth.With
LaTeX there is also an environment samepage.

With plain-TeX you can put that paragraph into a \vbox. Inside the \vbox
you may need to say s.th. like

\hsize=<width of lines of text inside the \vbox when TeX does the
line-breaking automatically>
Sincerely

Ulrich
Scott Pakin
2024-08-19 16:17:19 UTC
Permalink
Another package worth considering, depending on your needs, is
needspace. needspace provides commands that insert a page break if less
than a given amount of vertical space remains on the page:

\needspace{2\baselineskip}
First Line \\
Second Line

-- Scott

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