Spacing between groups of two list items

I'm trying to format a homework document, in which I want to write the questions and answers in a list. The question is followed by an answer, after which I want a slightly bigger gap before the next question and answer

beginitemize item[Q.] Question 1 item[A.] Answer 1 %space here item[Q.] Question 2 item[A.] Answer 2 enditemize

Currently, I'm adding a space by using an empty list item (item). The output is shown below. Unfortunately, this creates a much larger space than I want. Is there a cleaner way to do this?

item

Output

Welcome to TeX.SX! A hackish way would be to insert vspace<some amount> there. For example, vspace0.25cm. This would be quite boring for longer lists though...

– Phelype Oleinik
Sep 10 '18 at 22:48

vspace<some amount>

vspace0.25cm

5 Answers
5

Very basic solution which doesn't require manual spacing:

Define two macros, question and answer, which do item[Q.] and item[A.], respectively. The question macro also inserts a vertical space of 0.25 cm if it's not in the first question, so the space between the list and the paragraph is right.

question

answer

item[Q.]

item[A.]

question

0.25 cm

enter image description here

documentclassarticle usepackagelipsum% Just for dummy text makeatletter newififfirstquestion firstquestiontrue defquestion% iffirstquestion firstquestionfalse else vspace0.25cm% fi item[Q.] defanswer% item[A.] makeatother begindocument pagenumberinggobble lipsum[1] beginitemize question Question 1 answer Answer 1 question Question 2 answer Answer 2 question Question 2 answer Answer 2 question Question 2 answer Answer 2 enditemize lipsum[1] enddocument

and, following A. Ellet's suggestion, if you will always label each item with "Question /Answer ", you can use a counter:

documentclassarticle usepackagelipsum% Just for dummy text makeatletter newcounterQuestionCounter newififfirstquestion firstquestiontrue defquestion% iffirstquestion setcounterQuestionCounter1% Remove this to have the same numbering across different itemize's firstquestionfalse else vspace0.25cm% fi item[Q.] Question theQuestionCounter:space defanswer% item[A.] Answer theQuestionCounter:space stepcounterQuestionCounter makeatother begindocument pagenumberinggobble lipsum[1] beginitemize question What's your name? answer Foo question Where do you live? answer Bar question How old are you? answer -1 enditemize lipsum[1] enddocument

I would incorporate a counter, paircounter for each question/answer pair so that question expands to item[Q.] Question thepaircounter and answer expands to item[A.] Answer thepaircounter.

– A.Ellett
Sep 10 '18 at 23:13

paircounter

question

item[Q.] Question thepaircounter

answer

item[A.] Answer thepaircounter

@A.Ellett If the questions and answers will be labelled, then it's a good idea indeed. I added a version with that. Thanks :)

– Phelype Oleinik
Sep 10 '18 at 23:22

You have several options.

questionVSpace

These variants are implemented in the following MWE.

documentclassarticle %you can manually choose a space here if you do not like the predefined ones %In case you want to use one of the predfined ones, say smallskip, you should still use questionVSpace and replace vspace9ex with smallskip newcommandquestionVSpacevspace9ex newcounterquestionCounter newcommandqAndA[2] %The following code automatically adds the space unless it is the first question. ifnumvaluequestionCounter>0 bigskip%you can choose a different space here. fi stepcounterquestionCounter % You could also change "Q." to "Q. thequestionCounter" item[Q.] #1 item[A.] #2 begindocument sectionVariant A Test beginitemize item[Q.] Question 1 item[A.] Answer 1 smallskip item[Q.] Question 2 item[A.] Answer 2 medskip item[Q.] Question 3 item[A.] Answer 3 bigskip item[Q.] Question 4 item[A.] Answer 4 questionVSpace item[Q.] Question 5 item[A.] Answer 5 enditemize sectionVariant B Test beginitemize qAndA Text fooText bar qAndA Text fooText bar qAndA Text fooText bar enditemize enddocument

enter image description here

I think you forgot something at ifthequestionCounter. This will always evaluate to false. See the extra vertical space between 0.2 B and Q. Text foo.

– Phelype Oleinik
Sep 10 '18 at 23:14

ifthequestionCounter

0.2 B

Q. Text foo

@PhelypeOleinik Than you very much. I hope it is fixed now.

– CampanIgnis
Sep 10 '18 at 23:24

More simply, you could use a different itemize for each Q & A:

beginitemize item[Q.] Question 1 item[A.] Answer 1 end[itemize} beginitemize item[Q.] Question 2 item[A.] Answer 2 enditemize

Here's an approach using a new environment called QA. I've tried to throw in enough to let you see what's possible beyond just what you asked and to allow you to see where additional tweaks might enhance what you're doing. I've exaggerated the effect of adding vertical space between an answer and a following question: tweak to something more suitable.

QA

documentclassarticle newcounteraeQAcounter newcounteraePAIRcounter defaeRememberLastPair1 newenvironmentQA[1] %% save the definition of `item` so I can access %% its definition later when I *redefine* it. letaeitemitem %% a crude key value'ish approach to remembering %% previous value for question/answer pair. defaeTestA#1%% defaeTestBremember previous%% ifxaeTestAaeTestB %% nothing to do here!! else defaeRememberLastPair1%% fi setcounteraePAIRcounteraeRememberLastPair%% beginlist%% sffamily ifoddtheaeQAcounter Question theaePAIRcounter%% else Answer theaePAIRcounter%% stepcounteraePAIRcounter%% fi :%% usecounteraeQAcounter%% defitem%% %% only add space if not the first question ifnumtheaePAIRcounter=aeRememberLastPair %% do nothing!!!! else %% only add space before question and after %% an answer (the even `item` in the list) ifoddtheaeQAcounter else vspace4ex%% fi fi aeitem letquestionitem letansweritem xdefaeRememberLastPairtheaePAIRcounter%% endlist begindocument Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Ut purus elit, vestibulum ut, placerat ac, adipiscing vitae, felis. Curabitur dictum gravida mauris. Nam arcu beginQA question What do you say when you part from someone? question bye question What is a fruit that shouldn't be mixed with apples? answer An orange. endQA Nam dui ligula, fringilla a, euismod sodales, sollicitudin vel, wisi. Morbi auctor lorem non justo. Nam lacus libero, pretium at, lobortis vitae, ultricies et. textbfsffamily And, we continue with more questions: beginQA[remember previous] question Donec aliquet, tortor sed accumsan bibendum, erat ligula aliquet answer Cras nec ante. Pellentesque a nulla. Cum sociis natoque penatib question Donec aliquet, tortor sed accumsan bibendum, erat ligula aliquet answer Cras nec ante. Pellentesque a nulla. Cum sociis natoque penatib endQA textbfsffamily And, Here is a new set of questions: beginQA question Donec aliquet, tortor sed accumsan bibendum, erat ligula aliquet answer Cras nec ante. Pellentesque a nulla. Cum sociis natoque penatib question Donec aliquet, tortor sed accumsan bibendum, erat ligula aliquet answer Cras nec ante. Pellentesque a nulla. Cum sociis natoque penatib endQA enddocument

enter image description here

Notice that I use two counters here. One counter is essentially the list's counter for each item. If it's odd, that means I'm asking a question. If it's even, that means I'm answering a question. The second counter is only advanced once the question/answer pair has been established.

Also, notice that question and answer are stupid, in the sense that they're really just stand-ins for item and don't do much else. Everything is handled through item and tracking counters. I try to let the environment itself handle the tracking of questions and answers. The only difficulty comes when adding space. From within the list environment's arguments, not much can be done.

question

answer

item

list

One thing to note, you cannot insert vspace... from within the first argument to the list environment. It will do nothing there and just be ignored for the most part (or show up where you don't expect it).

vspace...

list

The space between items is controlled by itemsep, so you can fix for each item, with the advantage that your Q & A lists will not influenced by the default itemsep as it would happen using some additional vertical space as vspace,bigskip. I will add some glue too, not a fixed length, that would help to avoid orphan items/lines.

itemsep

vspace

bigskip

This can be done easily as already proposed making a macro for each item type, and I think that semantically is better that a complex redefine of item type to hiddenly switch from "Q." to "A.". With the "keep it simple" principle in mind, I do not see the need of conditionals or counters (I will edit the answer if you clarify this point), so the macros could be some like this:

item

documentclassarticle newcommandQ[1]item[bfseries Q.] itemsep2pt plus 2pt #1 newcommandA[1]item[bfseries A.] itemsep1em plus .2em minus .1em #1 newenvironmentq-asection*Questions and answersbeginitemizeenditemize begindocument beginq-a Q Question 1 A Answer 1 Q Question 2 A Answer 2 Q Question 3 A Answer 3 endq-a enddocument

mwe

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