examwsolns — Typesetting solutions with the `exam` class

The examwsolns package provides a wsolution environment for the exam LaTeX document class. This environment can automatically adapt the produced mdframed frame to its context (outer, question, part, subpart or subsubpart).

Package options

The examwsolns package accepts the following options:

default-level=current|outer|question|part|subpart|subsubpart (the default is current). When the first argument of a wsolution environment is blank, the given level is used to determine the indentation and width of the environment.
replace-solution-env. Using it as replace-solution-env or as replace-solution-env=true is equivalent. The default is false. When true, it tells examwsolns to redefine the solution environment to be identical to wsolution.

Package options can also be specified with:

\examwsolnsSetup{<options>}

For replace-solution-env, this only has effect if done in the preamble (the solution environment is redefined from the \AtBeginDocument hook in order to avoid problems due to package loading order).

The `wsolution` environment

Question level

The wsolution environment takes two optional arguments. If the first argument is passed and non-empty, it must be an integer in the [0, 4] range and gives the amount of indentation (and thus the width) of the produced mdframed;

if the value 0 is used, the frame starts at the left margin (what we call outer level);
the value 1 corresponds to the question level;
the value 2 corresponds to the part level;
the value 3 corresponds to the subpart level;
the value 4 corresponds to the subsubpart level.

If this first argument is omitted or blank, the wsolution environment takes appropriate indentation and width:

as indicated by option default-level if its value is not current;
for the current question level otherwise (which can be any of the five aforementioned levels).

Options passed to the `mdframed` environment

The mdframed environment is passed the leftmargin parameter according to what we just explained, plus additional parameters that are:

those from the wsolution environment's second argument if provided;
else, have been specified with the closest \examwsolnsSetMdFramedDefaultArgs command according to TeX's grouping rules (this command takes one argument: tokens to pass as additional options to mdframed);
none if the wsolution environment has been used with no second argument and \examwsolnsSetMdFramedDefaultArgs hasn't been called in an accessible scope.

Pre-text and post-text inside `mdframed`

The contents of a wsolution environment becomes the contents of an mdframed environment, except that you can have automatic pre-text and post-text inserted. For example, if you say \examwsolnsSetMdFramedPreText{pre-text:}, \examwsolnsSetMdFramedPostText{:post-text} and use, in a scope where these definitions are visible:

\begin{wsolution}Solution text\end{wsolution}

then the mdframed environment (if printed) will have pre-text:Solution text:post-text as its contents. \examwsolnsSetMdFramedPreText and \examwsolnsSetMdFramedPostText obey TeX's scoping rules (they respect groups), just like a \def command. When used, the \examwsolnsSetMdFramedPreText and \examwsolnsSetMdFramedPostText commands override the default values defined in examwsolns.sty. These default values are equivalent to doing:

\examwsolnsSetMdFramedPreText{%
  \textbf{Solution:}\enspace \ignorespaces}

and

\examwsolnsSetMdFramedPostText{\unskip}

Showing or hiding answers

wsolution environments are ignored unless the answers option has been passed to the exam class (in other words, the wsolution environment respects the \ifprintanswers conditional).

The five indentation amounts

The indentation amount from the left margin corresponding to each of the five question levels are accessible via the following 〈dimen〉 parameters: \examwsolnsOuterIndent, \examwsolnsQuestionIndent, \examwsolnsPartIndent, \examwsolnsSubpartIndent and \examwsolnsSubsubpartIndent.

Examples

You can find a sample .tex file showing how to use examwsolns in the examples subdirectory and a PDF rendering of that file.

History

The examwsolns package was written to answer this TeX.SE question.

License

The examwsolns package is distributed under the conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3 of this license or (at your option) any later version. See examwsolns.sty for the precise licensing information. The LICENSE file distributed with examwsolns contains the complete text of the LaTeX Project Public License version 1.3.

frougon / examwsolns