Last night, I wrote: > What is the cleanest way to do this with Expl3? Specifically, what are > the Expl3 equivalents of `\parbox` and `\llap`, at least in the way > this code uses them? > > (I understand that `\raggedleft` would be in a very different layer of > the code [the galley?] and probably doesn’t have a useable Expl3 > equivalent yet; and that using `\tex_kern:D` is no clearer than > `\kern`, and that its Expl3ization will probably be in the fonts > module. On the other hand, I see that l3trial/xfont/xfss.dtx includes > a definition for `\mode_leave_vertical:` so perhaps I’ll copy its > definition and use that.) Hunting around the latex3 repository it seems I’m anticipating what l3trial/xbox is doing. (It’s not stable, I understand, but is xbox in a somewhat usable state if I take it from the repository? I’m quite willing to change my [private] code as xbox updates, assuming the current state at least broadly approximates future plans.) Experimentation, and looking at xbox code, shows me that `\hbox_overlap_left:n` can substitute for `\llap`. I’m not sure why l3trial/xbox’s `\llap` includes `\xbox_leave_vmode:`, though—probably for the same reason the Memoir example code included `\leavevmode`, but I don’t understand that either; it seems to work just fine without it. The commit message at <https://github.com/latex3/latex3/commit/432d3d9> indicates that xbox does not yet have the equivalent of `\parbox`. For the restricted use I’m putting this to (`\parbox[t][0pt]{\somedim}{one or two lines of text}`), can somebody suggest a lightweight alternative? Neither wrapping `\hbox_to_wd:nn` within `\vbox_to_zero:n` nor the other way around worked for me. —Joel C. Salomon