How to increase space between \lik* and \liv1 in PTXprint setting?

Question

Hi, I'm noob. I need help. I want to increase space between \lik...\lik* and \liv1...\liv1* and print draft with PTXprint, but I don't know where to adjust the space setting.

Answer 1

I'm assuming you just want to get a little extra space in there. PTXprint has various interesting spaces that might be able to help and failing that you can define precisely how much space you want in there. So this answer may be longer than you were expecting and you are welcome to stop reading. Let's say you want about a full point size width in there, with a bit of stretch and shrink to help with line breaking. You can use a special Unicode character U+2003 (EM SPACE). To do this, add the following to your changes.txt (advanced, enable changes.txt):

```

'(\\lik\*)\s*(\\liv1)' > '\1\u2003\2'

```

which says to replace the space between the end of the lik and the start of the liv1 with the em space. It matches the closing \\lik* (and keeps it as \1) and also \\liv1 (as \2) and replaces the whole string with the kept \1 the replacement space and the \2.
You can also use our TeX name for this instead (\MSPACE) as in:

```

'(\\lik\*)\s*(\\liv1)' > '\1\\MSPACE\2'

```

All the Unicode spaces in the range \u2000-\u200B are open to you. But say you wanted a lot of space, more than a couple of \u2003 (yes you can put more than one in) gives you. Say you want to define exactly how much space you want in there. You can define your own space code. Let's call it \MYSPACE. We define it in ptxprint-mods.tex:

```

\def\MYSPACE{\hskip 4.6em minus 1em}

```

That's really wide but can shrink a bit. Then we need to insert it. You've probably guessed the changes.txt entry by now:

```

'(\\lik\*)\s*(\\liv1)' > '\1\\MYSPACE\2'

```

Have fun laying out your lists

Comments

Thank you mhosken. I test all options as you suggest.