Different column widths

Different column widths

[Matthew Baker]

Hi all,

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.

Oh, I can't do this with margins because I already have a left margin :(

Thanks.

- Matthew

--
Dr. Matthew Baker           matthew.baker@gmd.de
GMD - FIT.MMK               http://fit.gmd.de/hci/pages/matthew.baker.html

Re: Different column widths

[Hans Hagen]

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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Re: Different column widths

[Gilbert van den Dobbelsteen]

>
>Hi all,
>
>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

I needed that too, but you can't do that in \CONTEXT{}.

>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.

>
>Oh, I can't do this with margins because I already have a left margin :(

You could probably setup several boxes in the margins, but I need to know
the details. Could you provide me with sample output, and I can see what I
can do. There is also a left-edge where you can put in things. It all
depends on what you want. If you need for instance 3 columns with different
widths, and the main text flows in all these columns, you have a real
problem.

Gilbert.