Columns and components

["Jeff Smith" <ascarel@gmail.com>]

Hi!

I'm toying with a complex document environment involving multiple
components, both in order to learn in general and to accomplish
particular objectives.

So I want a 2-column layout for all the document, which is made up of
a bunch of components appended one after the other in a continuous
fashion.

The way I thought to acheive that is, instinctively, to use
\startcolumns in my product file, before declaring the various
components.

However, when I do this, the use of \stopcolumns at the end doesn't
work. The document does compile (with columns) when I don't use the
stop command, but when I do, there is an error:

! Extra }, or forgotten \endgroup.
\stopcolumns ...idecolumnsfalse \endgroup \egroup

l.12 \stopcolumns

What is the proper way of doing this? The thing is, I need to balance
my columns, and balancing doesn't work with no \stopcolumns.

Thanks!
Jeff