[pdftex] [Slightly OT] Width of ragged text

[Magnus Lie Hetland]

I guess this is more of a general LaTeX/TeX question, but I hope it's
not too far OT here...

The question is simply: How do I find the width of a piece of
ragged(right) text? I put the text in a parbox of a given width to
break it, but then, of course, it doesn't fill the width of the box,
and I no longer know how wide it is. Is it possible to find out?

-- 
Magnus Lie Hetland           "The mind is not a vessel to be filled,
http://hetland.org            but a fire to be lighted."  [Plutarch]