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Trying to use color in a varwidth environment, I stumbled upon
a warning from the varwidth package. Inspecting the issue and
trying the same with parbox and the minipage environment lead
to the following MWE:

documentclass{article}



usepackage{xcolor}

usepackage{varwidth}





begin{document}



begin{tabular}{lll}

verb|parbox| & verb|minipage| & verb|varwidth| \



%without color, everything works as expected.

parbox[t]{4em}{

%  color{red}

  test

}abc &

begin{minipage}[t]{4em}

%  color{red}

  test

end{minipage}

abc &

begin{varwidth}[t]{4em}

%  color{red}

  test

end{varwidth}

abc\



% but using color needs leavevmode and breaks varwidth

parbox[t]{4em}{

  leavevmode

  color{red}

  test

}abc &

begin{minipage}[t]{4em}

  leavevmode

  color{red}

  test

end{minipage}

abc &

% throws error (twice):

% Package varwidth Warning: Failed to reprocess entire contents on input line 45.

begin{varwidth}[t]{4em}

  leavevmodecolor{red}

  test

end{varwidth}% this is line 45

abc

end{tabular}



end{document}

produces the following warning twice

Package varwidth Warning: Failed to reprocess entire contents on input line 45.

As you can see, you can use color within parboxes and minipages,
if you insert a leavevmode, but it breaks the varwidth environment
with a warning. The behavior is similar to a parbox without leavevmode.

Is this (easily) fixable? Are there alternatives to varwidth?

To clarify what I want: I want to use colors in a varwidth environment
that work as intended: placement as in the line without colors.

You could use textcolor:

begin{varwidth}[t]{4em}

  textcolor{red}{test}

end{varwidth}

or an additional group:

begin{varwidth}[t]{4em}

  leavevmode

  {color{red}

  test}

end{varwidth}

Example:

documentclass{article}

usepackage{xcolor}

usepackage{varwidth}

begin{document}

begin{tabular}{lll}

verb|parbox| & verb|minipage| & verb|varwidth| \



parbox[t]{4em}{

  test

}abc &

begin{minipage}[t]{4em}

  test

end{minipage}

abc &

begin{varwidth}[t]{4em}

  test

end{varwidth}

abc\



parbox[t]{4em}{

  textcolor{red}{test}

}abc &

begin{minipage}[t]{4em}

  textcolor{red}{test}

end{minipage}

abc &

begin{varwidth}[t]{4em}

  textcolor{red}{test}

end{varwidth}

abc

\

parbox[t]{4em}{

  leavevmode

  color{red}

  test

}abc &

begin{minipage}[t]{4em}

  leavevmode

  color{red}

  test

end{minipage}

abc &

begin{varwidth}[t]{4em}

  leavevmode

  {color{red}

  test}

end{varwidth}

abc

end{tabular}

end{document}

Result:

Starting a minipage or parbox with color always has the side effect of producing a blank line at the top. You can solve the issue by using

begin{minipage}[t]{4em}

leavevmodecolor{red}% <--- don't forget

test

end{minipage}

However this doesn't work for varwidth. You can instead start the coloring outside the varwidth environment:

documentclass{article}



usepackage{xcolor}

usepackage{varwidth}



newenvironment{colorvarwidth}[1]

 {leavevmodecolor{#1}varwidth}

 {endvarwidth}



begin{document}



begin{tabular}{lll}

verb|parbox| & verb|minipage| & verb|varwidth| \



%without color, everything works as expected.

parbox[t]{4em}{

  leavevmodecolor{red}%

  test

}abc &

begin{minipage}[t]{4em}

  leavevmodecolor{red}%

  test

end{minipage}

abc &

begin{colorvarwidth}{red}[t]{4em}

  test

end{colorvarwidth}

abc

end{tabular}



end{document}