Btukfyl

I am trying to draw a partial box around one or more words within a paragraph--that is, a rectangle with one or more sides missing. I have read the documentation for the fancybox package and it doesn't seem to be able to do what I want. I was able to produce thus ugly hack:

That's just a vertical bar | followed by a word with overline and uline. The trick is to connect the vertical and horizontal lines so that you have a rectangle missing just one side.

Is there an easy, general way to do this, perhaps with Tikz? I don't know enough about that package to be able to do this myself, but I'm wondering if there might be other solutions too.

This solution EDITED to allow multiple sides to be stricken.

Made into a macro partbox{<sides>}{<content>} where sides are the sides to be stricken, in any combination (in any order) of l, b, r, or t. By using fbox, it is customizeable with the use of fboxsep and fboxrule.

Being a box, the words if more than one, will not be permitted to break across a line.

documentclass{article}

usepackage{trimclip}

newififlclip

newififbclip

newififrclip

newififtclip

defCLIP{dimexprfboxrule+.2ptrelax}

defnulclip{0pt}

newcommandpartbox[2]{%

  lclipfalsebclipfalserclipfalsetclipfalse%

  letlkernrelaxletrkernrelax%

  letlclipnulclipletbclipnulclipletrclipnulcliplettclipnulclip%

  parseclip#1relaxrelax%

  iflclipdeflkern{kernCLIP}deflclip{CLIP}fi

  ifbclipdefbclip{CLIP}fi

  ifrclipdefrkern{kernCLIP}defrclip{CLIP}fi

  iftclipdeftclip{CLIP}fi

  lkernclipbox{lclip{} bclip{} rclip{} tclip}{fbox{#2}}rkern%

}

defparseclip#1#2relax{%

  ifx l#1lcliptrueelse

  ifx b#1bcliptrueelse

  ifx r#1rcliptrueelse

  ifx t#1tcliptrueelse

  fifififi

  ifxrelax#2relaxelseparseclip#2relaxfi

}

parskip 1ex

begin{document}

partbox{l}{dans} partbox{b}{dans} partbox{r}{dans} partbox{t}{dans}



partbox{lt}{dans} partbox{lr}{dans} partbox{lb}{dans}



partbox{tb}{dans} partbox{tr}{dans}



partbox{br}{dans}



partbox{rlt}{dans} partbox{rbt}{dans} partbox{blt}{dans} partbox{blr}{dans}

end{document}

Just to show the ability to use fboxsep and fboxrule, here is the identical result, but with fboxsep=0ptrelaxfboxrule=1ptrelax set at the beginning of the document:

If one wishes it not to interfere with linespacing, then this tweak should work, adding a vphantom and smash. Of course, it will not prevent overlap, if fboxsep and/or fboxrule are set large enough (NOTE: this solution is still the original variety, only allowing a single side to be stricken):

documentclass{article}

usepackage[nopar]{lipsum}

usepackage{trimclip}

defCLIP{dimexprfboxrule+.2ptrelax}

newcommandpartbox[2]{leavevmodevphantom{#2}smash{%

  ifx#1lclipbox{CLIP{} 0pt 0pt 0pt}{fbox{#2}}else

  ifx#1bclipbox{0pt CLIP{} 0pt 0pt}{fbox{#2}}else

  ifx#1rclipbox{0pt 0pt CLIP{} 0pt}{fbox{#2}}else

  ifx#1tclipbox{0pt 0pt 0pt CLIP{}}{fbox{#2}}else

  fifififi

}}

parskip 1ex

begin{document}

lipsum[4] partbox{l}{dans}

lipsum[4] partbox{b}{dans}

lipsum[4] partbox{r}{dans}

lipsum[4] partbox{t}{dans}

lipsum[4] 

end{document}

Is there an easy, general way to do this, perhaps with Tikz?

I cannot understand the tendency of people to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Perhaps with tabular?

documentclass{article}

begin{document}

tabcolsep.2em

Un voyage begin{tabular}{|c }hline dans\hline end{tabular} l'space. 

Un voyage begin{tabular}{|c|}hline dans\       end{tabular} l'space. 

Un voyage begin{tabular}{ c|}hline dans\hline end{tabular} l'space. 

Un voyage begin{tabular}{|c|}       dans\hline end{tabular} l'space. 

end{document}

If you hate tabular, some makebox, rule and vrule commands can do the same work. However, it is tedious finding manually the right widths of the horizontal rules. But this is solved using widthof ofthe calc package. This make a complete framed box with automatic width:

vrule%

makebox[0pt][l]{rule[-.25em]{widthof{dans}+.2em}{.4pt}}% 

makebox[0pt][l]{rule[.85em]{widthof{dans}+.2em}{.4pt}}%

makebox[widthof{dans}+.2em][c]{dans}%

vrule 

Simply removing rows 1,2,3 or 5 in the above code you can obtain the incomplete boxes.

Convert both solutions in macros is straightforward. For simplicity, instead of a single macro with two arguments, I suggest make four macros where the text is the unique argument. For instance:

documentclass{article}

usepackage{calc}

newcommandopenleftbox[1]{%

vrule

makebox[0pt][l]{rule[-.25em]{widthof{#1}+.2em}{.4pt}}% 

makebox[0pt][l]{rule[.85em]{widthof{#1}+.2em}{.4pt}}%

makebox[widthof{#1}+.2em][c]{#1}%

%vrule 

}

begin{document}

Un voyage openleftbox{dans} l'space. 

end{document}

Another solution with tcbox (from tcolorbox.

documentclass{article}

usepackage{tcolorbox}

usepackage{lmodern}



newtcbox{lbox}[1]{on line, sharp corners, colback=white, colframe=black, size=small, leftrule=0pt,#1}



newtcbox{rbox}[1]{on line, sharp corners, colback=white, colframe=black, size=small, rightrule=0pt,#1}



newtcbox{tbox}[1]{on line, sharp corners, colback=white, colframe=black, size=small, toprule=0pt,#1}



newtcbox{bbox}[1]{on line, sharp corners, colback=white, colframe=black, size=small, bottomrule=0pt,#1}



begin{document}



The lbox{quick} tbox{brown} bbox{fox} rbox{jumps} over the lbox[colback=red!30, colframe=blue]{lazy dog}.



end{document}

This can be achieved with the efbox package.

Examples from the documentation:

documentclass[convert]{standalone}



usepackage{efbox}



begin{document}



efbox{Foo}

efbox[rightline=false,topline=false]{Foo}

efbox[topline,backgroundcolor=red]{Foo}

efbox[linewidth=2pt,font=Large]{Large Foo}

efbox[rightline=false,topline=false,linecolor=blue,linewidth=2pt]{Foo}

efbox[margin=10pt,backgroundcolor=yellow,font=ttfamilyitshape]{Italic Typewriter Foo}

efbox[linewidth=3pt,margin=5pt,backgroundcolor=red]{Foo}

efbox[hidealllines,backgroundcolor=red]{Foo}

efbox{Foo}

efbox[hidealllines,backgroundcolor=red,margin=15pt]{Foo}

efbox[margin=15pt,linewidth=5pt]{Foo}

efbox[bottomline=false,rightline=false,linewidth=2pt,margin=1pt,backgroundcolor=yellow]{Foo}

efbox{Foo}



end{document}

Package fbox has been recently added to CTAN. This package adds an optional parameter to fbox. This new parameter allows to declare which box sides should be drawn.

documentclass{article}

usepackage{fbox}



begin{document}



The fbox[tb]{quick} fbox[lr]{brown} fbox[ltb]{fox} fbox[trb]{jumps} fbox[lb]{over} fbox[tr]{the} fbox{lazy dog}.



end{document}