make latex honor newlines

Question

Is there an environment in LaTeX to accomplish this?

Feb 22 06:00AM - Wake up
Feb 22 06:15AM - Have breakfast
Feb 22 08:00AM - A very long sentence that I will have to break at some point
                 but maintaining indentation
Feb 22 08:00AM - Or maybe just a list here
                 One
                 Two
                 Three

Verbatim is not what I want, and finishing every sentence with \\ does not honor indentation. Is there an easy way to accomplish this, or will I have to manually tweak it?

Answer 1

I suggest using the tabularx package. This will let LaTeX automatically break long lines, unlike the ordinary tabular environment.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularx}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabularx}{\columnwidth}{rX}
Feb 22 06:00AM -& Wake up \\
Feb 22 06:15AM -& Have breakfast \\
Feb 22 08:00AM -& A very long sentence that I will have to break at some point
                  but maintaining indentation \\
Feb 22 08:00AM -& Or maybe just a list here
                  One
                  Two
                  Three
\end{tabularx}
\end{document}

If you want to put manual breaks in, that's easy:

Feb 22 08:00AM -& Or maybe just a list here \\
                & One \\
                & Two \\
                & Three

More information:

• LaTeX documentation (I found this using the Visual LaTeX FAQ)
• TeX FAQ entry Fixed-width tables

Answer 2

OK the best way that I have found so far is to use org-mode (since this is how I'm generating LaTeX in the 1st place) and use an orgmode table.

| Feb 22 06:00AM - | Wake up                                                                                  |
| Feb 22 06:15AM - | Have breakfast                                                                           |
| Feb 22 08:00AM - | A very long sentence that I will have to break at some point but maintaining indentation |
|                  | Or maybe just a list here                                                                |
|                  | One                                                                                      |
|                  | Two                                                                                      |
|                  | Three                                                                                    |

Then it will get exported as a tabulated environment, like so:

\begin{tabular}{ll}
 Feb 22 06:00AM -  &  Wake up                                                                                   \\
 Feb 22 06:15AM -  &  Have breakfast                                                                            \\
 Feb 22 08:00AM -  &  A very long sentence that I will have to break at some point but maintaining indentation  \\
                   &  Or maybe just a list here                                                                 \\
                   &  One                                                                                       \\
                   &  Two                                                                                       \\
                   &  Three                                                                                     \\
\end{tabular}

Answer 3

Just set parindent to a negative value, and let each item be a paragraph:

\documentclass{article}
\parindent -4em
\begin{document}
Feb 22 06:00AM - Wake up

Feb 22 06:15AM - Have breakfast

Feb 22 08:00AM - A very long sentence that I will have to break at some point but maintaining indentation

Feb 22 08:00AM - Or maybe just a list here\\
             One\\
             Two\\
             Three\\
\end{document}

Answer 4

Maybe I misunderstood your question in my previous answer. If you want the the amont of indentation to be automatically adjusted to the longest label, use itemize:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{itemize}
\item[Feb 22 06:00AM -] Wake up
\item[Feb 22 06:15AM -] Have breakfast
\item[Feb 22 08:00AM -] A very long sentence that I will have to break at some point but maintaining indentation
\item[Feb 22 08:00AM -] Or maybe just a list here\\
             One\\
             Two\\
             Three\\
\end{itemize}
\end{document}