\documentclass[a4paper]{article} \usepackage[a4paper]{geometry} \usepackage{miscdoc} \usepackage[scaled=0.85]{luximono} \begin{document} \title{The \Package{truncate} package} \author{Donald Arseneau\thanks{Documentation file assembled by Robin Fairbairns}} \date{August 2001, version 3.6} \maketitle \section*{Truncating text to a given width} The package defines a command \cmdinvoke{truncate}[\meta{marker}]{\meta{width}}{\meta{text}} If the text is too wide to fit in the specified width, then it is truncated, and a continuation marker is shown at the end. The default marker, used when the optional \texttt{[marker]} parameter is omitted, is \cs{,}\cs{dots}. You can change this default by redefining \cs{TruncateMarker} (\cmdinvoke{renewcommand}{\cs{TruncateMarker}}{\dots}). Normally, the text (whether truncated or not) is printed flush-left in a box with exactly the width specified. The package option \option[fit] causes the output text to have its natural width, up to a maximum of the specified width. The text will not normally be truncated in the middle of a word, nor at a space specified by the tie (\verb|~|). For example: \begin{quote} \cmdinvoke{truncate}{122pt}{This text has been\string~truncated} \end{quote} gives \begin{quote} ``This text has\dots~~~~~~'' \end{quote} You can give one of the package options \option[hyphenate], \option[breakwords], or \option[breakall] to allow breaking in the middle of words. The first two only truncate at hyphenation points; with the difference being that \option[breakwords] suppresses the hyphen character. On the other hand, \option{breakall} allows truncation at any character. For example: \begin{quote} \cmdinvoke{truncate}{122pt}{This text has been\string~truncated} \end{quote} gives \begin{quote} \begin{tabular}{l@{\quad}l} ``This text has been trun-...'' & (option hyphenate) \\ ``This text has been trun...~'' & (option breakwords) \\ ``This text has been trunc...'' & (option breakall) \end{tabular} \end{quote} (All of these options work through \TeX{}'s hyphenation mechanism.) \end{document}