[texhax] stretch section title in twocolumn

[tom sgouros]

Paul Tremblay <phthenry at iglou.com> wrote:

> However, I have come across another problem that can't really be fixed
> by any tricks. The output looks ugly because there are long titles and
> epigraphs that are fit into narrow columns. I've come to the
> conclusion there is no template that will allow automatic conversion
> into multi-columns. You have to tinker with the layout to get it to
> look decently. Specifically, I have to use the multicols environment
> repeatedly and make sure certain element are outside.

But you can do tricks with that, too.  Just typeset the epigraph into a
box, and you can append the \usebox to the reworked sectioning command.
With multicols, you can be quite arbitrary about what belongs in the
multiple columns and what doesn't.

But now your example looks different than what you'd been saying this
morning, so I'm not sure how to be more exact in my suggestion.

You're right that a general solution to making things look pretty will
be challenging.  But I suspect a general solution to making them look ok
is probably well within reach of LaTeX's bag of tricks.  That's why most
of us use it.  (We didn't choose it for its intuitive syntax.)

Incidentally, in XML->Latex conversions I've done, the general approach
you want to take is a one-to-one mapping between the XML tags and the
latex, and put all the complexity safe inside your class definition.  I
think that makes the most robust converter and the easiest-to-test
classes.  (I offer this advice based on observing the \vspace in your
example.  I think that sort of thing only leads to trouble.)

 -tom


> 
> \section{title}
> 
> % epigraph
> <em>The blah blah bah</em>\par
> <em>author</em>
> \vspace{12pt}
> \begin{multicols}{2}
> text...
> \end{multicols}
> 
> \section{title}
> 
> \begin{multicols}{2}
> text...
> \end{multicols}
> 
> Paul
> 
> -- 
> 
> ************************
> *Paul Tremblay         *
> *phthenry at iglou.com    *
> ************************
> _______________________________________________
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> Mailing list archives: http://tug.org/pipermail/texhax/
> More links: http://tug.org/begin.html
> 
> Automated subscription management: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/texhax
> Human mailing list managers: postmaster at tug.org


-- 
 ------------------------
 tomfool at as220 dot org
 http://sgouros.com  
 http://whatcheer.net