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I have two equations, each with a left part and a right part. The first equation has an extra-long left part, and the second equation has an extra-long right part.

I want to align the left part to the left margin and the right part to the right margin for each equation. This is what I have tried, but it is not working:

\begin{flalign} & \text{Short left} & \text{Very long right-hand side expression that extends far} && \\ & \text{Very long left-hand side expression that extends far} & \text{Short right} && \end{flalign}

and the output:

example

As you can see, in the output, the length of each equation line extends far beyond the right margin (where the equation numbers are located).

I want the left part to start at the left margin and the right part to end at the right margin, on the same line with the equation number.

Please help :)

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4 Answers 4

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2

Basically you want to overlap the long items.

\documentclass{article} \usepackage{mathtools} \begin{document} \begin{flalign} & \text{Short left} &&& \mathllap{\text{Very long right-hand side expression that extends far}} \\ & \mathrlap{\text{Very long left-hand side expression that extends far}} &&& \text{Short right} \end{flalign} \end{document}

demo

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  • I don't really know how it works, but this is actually the simplest solution. Thanks! Commented Mar 18 at 12:26
2

You can put the second column in a right-aligned box:

\begin{flalign} & \text{Short left} &\makebox[0mm][r]{Very long right-hand side expression that extends far} \\ & \text{Very long left-hand side expression that extends far} &\makebox[0mm][r]{Short right} \end{flalign}

enter image description here

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I'd define a specific command for this: \lreq takes two mandatory arguments, the left and right part respectively, and an optional argument that can be used for fine tuning.

\documentclass{article} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{showframe}% just for showing the text block margins \newcommand{\lreq}[3][4em]{% &\makebox[\dimeval{\displaywidth-#1}][s]{$\displaystyle#2$\hfil$\displaystyle#3$}% } \begin{document} \begin{align} \lreq{\text{Short left}}{\text{Very long right-hand side expression that extends far}} \\ \lreq{\text{Very long left-hand side expression that extends far}}{\text{Short right}} \end{align} \begin{align} \lreq[6em]{\text{Short left}}{\text{Very long right-hand side expression that extends far}} \\ \lreq[6em]{\text{Very long left-hand side expression that extends far}}{\text{Short right}} \end{align} \end{document}

output

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Try:

\documentclass{article} \usepackage{amsmath} \begin{document} \begin{flalign} \text{Short left} && \text{Very long right-hand side expression that extends far} & \end{flalign} \begin{flalign} \text{Very long left-hand side expression that extends far} && \text{Short right} & \end{flalign} \end{document}
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  • 1
    Thanks! I tried it before, however it will have a lot of space between each equation. Do you have any work aroud without using the \vspace{} between each equation? Commented Mar 17 at 18:36

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