Hi, Will, Thank you for that. Here's what I currently do for measuring (99.5% of the credit to @egreg). In this case, I have a logo image, 10 points of space, and a rule to fill the rest of the measure horizontally: \usepackage{xparse} \ExplSyntaxOn \NewDocumentCommand{\WidthOfCoffin}{m}{ \box_wd:N #1 } \NewDocumentCommand{\HeightOfCoffin}{m}{ \box_ht:N #1 } \NewDocumentCommand{\DepthOfCoffin}{m}{ \box_dp:N #1 } \ExplSyntaxOff \NewCoffin \ruleh \newlength{\worki} \setlength{\worki}{\textwidth} \addtolength{\worki}{-10pt} \addtolength{\worki}{-\WidthOfCoffin{\logo}} \SetHorizontalCoffin \ruleh {\color{blue}\rule{\worki}{1pc}} Of course, I could have done this by simply measuring the image in the \logo coffin, or even prescribing its width by other means ...[width=1in]..., but doing all my copyfitting and layout with coffins makes for nice, uniform code (and therefore, I suspect, easier to maintain --- just following the layout of the elementare typographie cover page made my brain hurt! [No criticism intended other than of my own limitations!]). Cheers, Brent