The memoir class - The UK TeX Archive

8. PARAGRAPHS AND LISTSThe adjustwidth environment temporarily adds the length 〈left〉 to the lefthand marginand 〈right〉 to the righthand margin. That is, a positive length value increases the marginand hence reduces the textwidth, and a negative value reduces the margin and increasesthe textwidth. The quotation environment is roughly equivalent to\begin{adjustwidth}{2.5em}{2.5em}The starred version of the environment, adjustwidth*, is really only useful if the leftand right margin adjustments are different. The starred version checks the page numberand if it is odd then adjusts the left (spine) and right (outer) margins by 〈left〉 and 〈right〉respectively; if the page number is even (a verso page) it adjusts the left (outer) and right(spine) margins by 〈right〉 and 〈left〉 respectively.\strictpagecheck \lazypagecheckOdd/even page checking may be either strict (\strictpagecheck) or lazy(\lazypagecheck). Lazy checking works most of the time but if it fails at any point thenthe strict checking should be used.As an example, if a figure is wider than the textwidth it will stick out into the righthandmargin. It may be desireable to have any wide figure stick out into the outer margin wherethere is usually more room than at the spine margin. This can be accomplished by\begin{figure}\centering\strictpagecheck\begin{adjustwidth*}{0em}{-3em}% the illustration\caption{...}\end{adjustwidth*}\end{figure}A real example in this manual is Table 10.1 on page 181, which is wider than the typeblock.In that case I just centered it by using adjustwidth to decrease each margin equally.In brief, like\begin{table}\begin{adjustwidth}{-1cm}{-1cm}\centering...\end{adjustwidth}\end{table}Note that the adjustwidth environment applies to complete paragraphs; you can’tchange the width of part of a paragraph except for hanging paragraphs or more esotericallyvia \parshape. Further, if the adjusted paragraph crosses a page boundary themargin changes are constant; a paragraph that is, say, wider at the right on the first pagewill also be wider at the right as it continues onto the following page.The center environment horizontally centers its contents with respect to the typeblock.Sometimes you may wish to horizontally center some text with respect to the physicalpage, for example when typesetting a colophon which may look odd centered withrespect to the (unseen) typeblock.The calculation of the necessary changes to the spine and fore-edge margins is simple.Using the same symbols as earlier in §2.4 (P w and B w are the width of the trimmed page132