How to prevent line breaks within in description?

Question

Basic question, but I'm just seeking out how to prevent line breaking when using description. I'm very new to latex, so I'm unsure of how it works. The code I have is here.

\begin{description}  
\item[Lane 1]NEB 1kb Ladder  
\item[Lane 2](Single Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid  
\item[Lane 3](Double Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid  
\item[Lane 4](Undigested) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid

I aplogize, to clarify what I mean by line breaking, I mean that I want to prevent the spacing inbetween each item in the list.

Welcome to TeX.se. Please don't post code fragments. Instead put the fragment into a complete compilable document that shows the problem. What do you mean by "prevent line breaks"? — Alan Munn, May 07 '17 at 01:49
You might also find this helpful, more generally: What are good learning resources for a LaTeX beginner? — Alan Munn, May 07 '17 at 02:00

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 07 '17 at 02:00

Have a look at the enumitem package. The manual will tell you how to get the spacing right. It's to do with the label size, I suspect.

\documentclass{article}


\usepackage[inline]{enumitem}

\begin{document}

\begin{description*} \item[Lane 1]NEB 1kb Ladder; \item[Lane 2](Single Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid; \item[Lane 3](Double Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid; \item[Lane 4] (Undigested) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid.  
\end{description*}
\end{document}

Fran · Answer 2 · 2017-05-07T19:19:38.707

Inline description* of enumitem (JPI answer) is ugly because the huge space after labels and the lack of hyphenation of the items have little sense in this mode:

In this case, is better paralist:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[alwaysadjust]{paralist}
\begin{document}
\begin{inparadesc}
\item[Lane 1.] NEB 1kb Ladder,
\item[Lane 2.] (Single Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid, 
\item[Lane 3.] (Double Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid and
\item[Lane 4.] (Undigested) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid.  
\end{inparadesc}
\end{document}

But, in this case ,as the label have a counter, it is better return to enumitem and use enumerate*, and moreover, control what goes between items, and include " and " between the two last items automatically. I left in red all that is included automatically (of course, remove colors for a real work):

Or if you prefer end the item punctuation manually, or not include any, then another option is define your own environment (same output that above using paralist) without using enumitem, o may be intented as with some vertical separastion:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\parskip 1em
\usepackage[inline]{enumitem}
\newcounter{descinline}

\def\ditem{\addtocounter{descinline}{1}\textbf{Lane \arabic{descinline}}.~}
\begin{document}

\begin{description*}[leftmargin=*,labelsep=*]
\item[Lanes 1]NEB 1kb Ladder; 
\item[Lane 2](Single Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid; 
\item[Lane 3](Double Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid; 
\item[Lane 4] (Undigested) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid.  
\end{description*}

\begin{enumerate*}[label={\textcolor{red}{\bfseries
Lane\,\arabic*:}}, itemjoin={\textcolor{red}{, }} ,
itemjoin*={\textcolor{red}{ ,\ and\ }}]
\item NEB 1kb Ladder
\item (Single Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid
\item (Double Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid
\item (Undigested) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid.  
\end{enumerate*}

\newenvironment{descinline}{\setcounter{descinline}{0}}{}   
\begin{descinline}%
\ditem NEB 1kb Ladder.  
\ditem (Single Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid,   
\ditem (Double Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid and   
\ditem (Undigested) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid.
\end{descinline}

\renewenvironment{descinline}{\setcounter{descinline}{0}
\list{}{\setlength{\leftmargin}{4em}}\item[]\relax}{\endlist}   
\begin{descinline}%
\ditem NEB 1kb Ladder,  
\ditem (Single Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid,   
\ditem (Double Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid and  
\ditem (Undigested) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid.
\end{descinline}

\end{document}

Or, why reinvent the weel? There are aslo inparaenum (the ouput is the same that inparadesc, but labels are now typed automatically)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[alwaysadjust]{paralist}
\begin{document}
\begin{inparaenum}[\bfseries {Lane}~1.]
\item NEB 1kb Ladder,
\item (Single Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid, 
\item (Double Digest) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid and
\item (Undigested) pET-41a/EGFP Recombinant plasmid.  
\end{inparaenum}
\end{document}

How to prevent line breaks within in description?

2 Answers2