%%
%% The LaTeX Companion, 2ed (second printing August 2004)
%%
%% Example 3-3-27 on page 149.
%%
%% Copyright (C) 2004 Frank Mittelbach, Michel Goossens,
%%    Johannes Braams, David Carlisle, and Chris Rowley
%%
%% It may be distributed and/or modified under the conditions
%% of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3
%% of this license or (at your option) any later version.
%%
%% See http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt for details.
%%

\documentclass{ttctexa}
\pagestyle{empty}
\setcounter{page}{6}
\setlength\textwidth{159.0pt}
\sloppy %as the column in the book is so small
\StartShownPreambleCommands
\usepackage{calc}
\newenvironment{altDescription}[1]
  {\begin{list}{}%
    {\renewcommand\makelabel[1]{\textsf{##1:}\hfil}%
     \settowidth\labelwidth{\makelabel{#1}}%
     \setlength\leftmargin{\labelwidth+\labelsep}}}%
  {\end{list}}
\StopShownPreambleCommands
\begin{document}
\begin{altDescription}{Return values}
\item[Description]
   Returns from a function.  If issued at top level,
   the interpreter simply terminates, just as if end
   of input had been reached.
\item[Errors]
   None.
\item[Return values]
   Any arguments in effect are passed back to the
   caller.
\end{altDescription}
\end{document}