[texhax] parbox placement

[Robin Fairbairns]

> I am using LaTeX and would like to place a parbox somewhere on a page
> without affecting the spacing of the rest of the page.  
> 
> For instance, can one "record" the vertical position on a page, then do
> the parbox and then return to the recorded vertical position?  I know I
> can undo the vertical spacing of the parbox, but would like to have a
> mechanism whereby I need not do this in an ad hoc way for every parbox. 

you can't do that (easily, anyway -- if you were using pdflatex you
might manage something in a second pass ... i think).

alternatively, you might used the textpos package; but that requires
you to know the absolute positions you require, before you start.

why would a mechanism have to be ad-hoc?  a macro that placed the
arguments of \parbox inside a box of zero size would seem to me
entirely reasonable.

> This is what \marginpar does, but I don't think I can use marginpar.

it's not what \marginpar does: \marginpar is a float mechanism, and
they _do_ affect other things on the page (other \marginpars -- they
won't overlap each other, so if more than one is called "on the same
line" the later one will be displaced).

it might be helpful to know what you actually want to achieve, rather
than your proposed way of achieving it.  can you explain that, simply?