Latex: stretchable curly braces outside math

Question

I am producing some latex beamer slides (but I think it is not a beamer specific question per se).

I have the following:

\begin{itemize}
\item Issue1
\item Issue2
\item Issue3
\end{itemize}

Now, I want to have a right curly brace (i.e. '}') behind the items spreading over issue1 and issue2. And of course I want to write something behind that curly brace.

In a perfect world I would write something like:

\begin{itemize}
\left .
\item Issue1
\item Issue2
\right \} One and Two are cool
\item Issue3
\end{itemize}

This does not work because I am not in a math environment and I can not put the whole snippet inside a math environment because itemize would not work in that case.

Is there a clean solution or a hack to produce my desired result?

Regards, Bastian.

Static

Isn't it just \} and not \\}? – Brahma

You are right. (The snippet was not formated as code before so I had to write '\\}' to let '\}' appear. After editing I forgot to remove the backslash.) – Static

Answer 1

I'd use tikz and make an overlay.

First include the proper packages (you may not need to include tikz since this is a beamer question):

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathreplacing}

Then when you make your list, give names to the places after each item:

\begin{itemize}
    \item Issue 1     
        \tikz[remember picture] \node[coordinate,yshift=0.5em] (n1) {}; 
    \item Issue 2
        \tikz[remember picture] \node[coordinate] (n2) {};
    \item Issue 3
\end{itemize}

(Note: I shifted the y value up by 1/2 of a line maybe more would be better.)

Because we used remember picture we can refer to these places in an overlay:

  \begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture]
      \path (n2) -| node[coordinate] (n3) {} (n1);
      \draw[thick,decorate,decoration={brace,amplitude=3pt}]
            (n1) -- (n3) node[midway, right=4pt] {One and two are cool};
  \end{tikzpicture}

The path is there to deal with items that do not have the same width. This edit comes from ESultanik's answer.

The result is:

Side note: You can remove all of the remember picture options and add the following to automatically add remember to all pictures:

\tikzstyle{every picture}+=[remember picture]

Cotidal

Thats it! Realy cool! I post an adapted example below. Thanks a lot. – Static

I've never used this before, it may not be so pretty when the items don't have the same length. In that case you'll probably need to set some hard x value for the \node s or maybe use some rubber width like \hspace{2in}. I'm sure there is some smart tikz way to compute the max x value for two nodes also. – Cotidal

Updated to deal with items that have different widths, using ESultanik's answer. – Cotidal

First suggestion that works for me! Nice! is n3 the "point in the middle" of the curly bracket? – Nighthawk

I believe N3 is the point to the right of the second bullet that is directly below the point to the right of the first bullet. – Cotidal

Answer 2

You could (ab)use a table instead:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multirow}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{ll}

\textbullet Issue 1 & \multirow{2}{*}{{\LARGE \}} One and Two are cool} \\
\textbullet Issue 2                                                     \\
\textbullet Issue 3                                                     \\

\end{tabular}

\end{document}

produces:

removed dead Imageshack link

Orpine

@Mark, thanks, although when spawning } over 3 (or more) rows, it might become too wide. But that will be something basweber should/would try and see for him/her self. – Orpine

Yes, spawning 3 or more items is on my wish list. ;) And there is another Problem: $\bullet$ looks different from the default bullet of the itemize environment (in a beamer document). – Static

Use \textbullet instead of $\bullet$ – Cotidal

Answer 3

Here is Geoffs code with some small adaptions (just for other beamer users)

\begin{frame}{Example}

\begin{itemize}
\item The long Issue 1
\tikz[remember picture] \node[coordinate,yshift=0.7em] (n1) {}; \\
spanning 2 lines


\item Issue 2
  \tikz[remember picture] \node[coordinate, xshift=1.597cm] (n2) {};
\item Issue 3

\end{itemize}

\visible<2->{
\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture]
  \draw[thick,decorate,decoration={brace,amplitude=5pt}]
        (n1) -- (n2) node[midway, right=4pt] {One and two are cool};
\end{tikzpicture}
 } % end visible

\end{frame}

Ressult (2nd slide of that frame):

The adaptions are:

• added the visible command (because I think it is useful to blend in the brace later)
• made the items more complex so the use of xshift became necessary (I figured out the xshift value simply by try and error so thats a drop of bitterness) Edit 2018-12-23: manual try-and-error shifting can be overcome by using this method: (n1 -| n2) -- (n2) instead of (n1) -- (n2).

Static

Yeah, the xshift, this upsets me also. I know there's a way to compute the maximum x value for two nodes, I just don't know tikz well enough. – Cotidal

I opened a new question: #2777679 Lets see if anyone comes up with a nice solution. – Static

Good. I was thinking of doing that. I've been wasting loads of time trying to figure it out on my own. There are so many nice Tikz examples, but it's so flexible that it's hard to find exactly what you need (or think you need). – Cotidal

Answer 4

One way to get around this would be to use a math environment like align, put the bullet points by hand (with \bullet ), and then use the resources of the math environment for big braces and such.

Mer

I thought about that (but without knowing $\bullet$ in particular). Is there a way to produce a symbol looking like the default bullet of the itemize environment in a beamer document? If so, this solution seems quite applicable. – Static

Answer 5

I did something similar once. I let the list be in a column to the left, and in the right column, I did the $\right\}$-thing so that it was as tall as some \mbox or something (which I decided with \vphantom or something similar). Unfortunately I don't have time to dig it out... I actually don't have time to be at SO at all right now ;)

Pede

@aioobe, that's just as ugly as the other solutions. – Pede

are you now talking to yourself? :) – Orpine

Wanted to put. the comment there before someone else ;) – Pede

Answer 6

I tried my idea, below. It doesn't work: unfortunately, the vboxes produced by the itemize environment all have width \textwidth.

The UI of my suggestion is nice, and by redefining \item it should be possible to get the item vboxes be of reasonable width. Or calculate a reasonable width for the vboxes containing the items. But since there are functional solutions already, I won't spend anymore time on this.

\documentclass{article}

\def\setgrouptext#1{\gdef\grouptext{#1}}
\newenvironment{groupeditems}{\begin{displaymath}\left.\vbox\bgroup\setgrouptext}{%
  \egroup\right\rbrace\hbox{\grouptext}\end{displaymath}}

\begin{document}

\begin{itemize}
\item Line 1
\begin{groupeditems}{Lines 2 and 3 together!}
\item Line 2
\item Line 3
\end{groupeditems}
\item Line 4
\end{itemize}

\end{document}

Quadrisect