beginminipage

The beginminipage and endminipage environment in LaTeX is used to create a box with a specified width and height. This environment is particularly useful for creating multi-column layouts or for placing elements side-by-side within a document. The syntax for the environment is \begin{minipage}[<pos>][<height>][<inner-pos>]{<width>} ... \end{minipage}. The <width> argument is mandatory and specifies the width of the minipage. The optional arguments <pos>, <height>, and <inner-pos> control the vertical alignment of the minipage relative to the surrounding text, its height, and the vertical alignment of its contents, respectively.

When creating multiple minipages side-by-side, it is important to ensure that the sum of their widths does not exceed the width of the main text area. Otherwise, the minipages will wrap onto the next line. Whitespace between minipages can be controlled by the spacing commands in LaTeX, such as \hfill or by carefully placing the \end{minipage} and \begin{minipage} commands on the same line in the source code, separated by a comment or a newline character.

The minipage environment effectively creates a self-contained TeX vertical box, which can contain any LaTeX material, including text, figures, tables, and other minipages. This allows for complex and precise layout control, enabling designers to arrange content in a flexible and structured manner. It is a fundamental tool for advanced document typesetting in LaTeX.