[Tugindia] Using conditionals

[Nina Mazumdar]

On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 11:12 PM, Kannan Moudgalya <kannan at iitb.ac.in> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I want to know how to use the conditionals in LaTeX.  For example, if I
> have the \multicols option on, I want the width of the inserted figures
> to be \linewidth.  If this option is off, the width should become
> 0.5\linewidth.

Do we need to go for any conditional command? What we need is nothing
but a new dimension defined which is exactly the column width.

Here is one way of doing it:

%---------------- Begin --------------------

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[english]{babel} % for blindtext
\usepackage{blindtext} % to fill arbitrary text in a document

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{multicol}

\makeatletter
 \newdimen\Columnwidth
 \Columnwidth=\textwidth
 \advance\Columnwidth by -\columnsep
 \divide\Columnwidth by 2
 \def\Includegraphics{\@ifnextchar[{\@Includegraphics}{\@Includegraphics[]}}
 \def\@Includegraphics[#1]#2{\noindent
      \includegraphics[#1,width=\Columnwidth]{#2}}
%
% you can use any of the \includegraphics options too
%
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\blindtext[1]

\Includegraphics{gr}
\end{multicols}

\blindtext[1]

\Includegraphics{gr}

\end{document}

%---------------- End --------------------

Happy TeXing and best regards

-- 
Nina