🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul28.193951.2901@muddcs.claremont.edu> I wrote:
>Is there any way to find the width of a bit of text in TeX?  I'd like
>a command, say \widthof, that would work like this:
>
>\newdimen\textwidth
>\textwidth=\widthof{some text}
>
>From then on, I could use \textwidth to be the width of the string
>"some text".
>
>Please respond by e-mail.
>
>Thanks,
>Gene.
>gene@icarus.claremont.edu

Thanks to all the folks who responded; your solutions worked beautifully.
The gist of most of the solutions was this:  plop whatever you want the
width of into a box, then use \wd to find the width of the box.
Specifically, to use the example above, you'd do something like this:

\def\widthof#1{\setbox73\hbox{#1}\wd73\relax}

Gene.
gene@icarus.claremont.edu

Have you seen these people?
Name              Last seen/heard from Add. Info.
Jeff Kirk         Yokota AB,Japan,1981 Fthr Clyde,Mthr Sophie,was in BSA
John W. Ewing III Las Vegas,NV,1987?   May go to UNLV, has sister Allison?
Lynn Aldrich      UNY @Albany,1990     May still be @Albany, half Korean
Any info. is appreciated.  Please respond via e-mail.