# W3cubDocs

/LaTeX

#### \dashbox

Synopsis:

```\dashbox{dash-len}(rect-width,rect-height){text}
\dashbox{dash-len}(rect-width,rect-height)[position]{text}
```

Create a dashed rectangle around text. This command fits with the `picture` environment, although you can use it outside of there, because lengths are numbers specifying the distance in terms of the `\unitlength` (see picture).

The required arguments are: dashes are dash-len units long, with the same length gap, and the rectangle has overall width rect-width units and height rect-height units.

The optional argument position specifies the position of text; see \makebox (picture) for the values that it can take.

This shows that you can use non-integer value for dash-len.

```\put(0,0){\dashbox{0.1}(5,0.5){My hovercraft is full of eels.}}
```

Each dash will be `0.1\unitlength` long, the box’s width is `5\unitlength` and its height is `0.5\unitlength`.

As in that example, a dashed box looks best when rect-width and rect-height are multiples of the dash-len.