[Liverpool] any LaTeX experts out there?

[Daniel Hulme]

I have a problem with LaTeX, google has been a bit unhelpful on the
matter, and I don't feel like subscribing to a TUG list just for this
one little problem, so I hope someone here knows what they're doing.

I can't get the \labelwidth length in the list environment to do
anything. My code looks like this:
>>>
  \setlength{\labelwidth}{20in}
  \begin{list}{%
    \setlength{\labelsep}{2in}%
    \setlength{\parsep}{0pt}%
    \setlength{\topsep}{0pt}%
    \setlength{\leftmargin}{1in}%
    %\setlength{\labelwidth}{20in}%
  }{}
<<<
and inside the list I do things like
>>>
\item[hello]
\parbox[t]{some width}{some text}
<<<
but "hello" gets set in a box of the natural width rather than a 20in
box as I specify (as you may guess, the 20in box is a testing value and
it doesn't work with smaller lengths either). I can use the length
\labelwidth within my list and it is set correctly. As you can see in my
code fragment, I have tried setting the length in two different places
and it makes no difference.

Incidentally, I get lots of "overfull \vbox[$.39996pt too high] has
occurred while \output is active" errors, with $ ranging from 65 to 24,
but this is probably unrelated.

Thanks if anyone can help,
Daniel

-- 
A church is more than just timber and stone   .oO( surreal.istic.org )
And freedom is a dark road when you're walking it alone   -Paul Simon,
But the future is now, and it's time to take a stand       'A Church 
So the lost bells of freedom can ring out in my land.      is Burning'
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