Re: Different column widths

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

Matthew Baker wrote:

> Is it possible to set column widths for a startcolumns ... stopcolumns so
> that they are not all the same width?  What I'd like for the particular
> document I'm working on is to have 2 narrow columns at the left of the
> page and 1 or 2 wider columns taking up the rest of the page width.  The
> contents of the two left columns are pretty simple (just images) but the
> other two columns are more complex.  If this is not possible, is there
> another way of achieving the same result.  I figure something with hboxes
> and vboxes would be what I need but I'm no TeX guru.

Text in 2+1 column would be difficult for tex because the text is
already typeset when columns are split. When you want figures in the
first two, it depends on the situation. Try this: 

\starttext

\showframe

\setuplayout
  [backspace=10cm,
   leftmargin=9cm,
   leftmargindistance=.5cm,
   width=10cm]

\setupinmargin[1][width=4cm]
\setupinmargin[2][width=4cm,distance=4.5cm]

\margintext[1]{\framed[width=4cm,height=8cm,background=screen]{one}}
\margintext[2]{\framed[width=4cm,height=6cm,background=screen]{two}}

some text and some more and more

\stoptext

You can also (mis)use background and texts placement mechanisms, but as
sais, it depends on what you want to achieve. 

There is even a provisionary margin float mechanism, which I haven't
used for years -)

Hans

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