Laying out an enumerate environment evenly in two columns with a picture in between

Question

I have a list of items inside enumerate. I'd like to lay them out in two columns, separated by an image. The numbering matters, so I can't break them into two separate enumerate environment. Is there a way to persuade multicols to do this for me ?

An alternate strategy is to manually break, and somehow start the second enumerate at the right count. This is inelegant, but would suffice. Is there a way to do that ?

Answer 1

You can use the multicol package.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{multicol}
\begin{document}

\begin{multicols}{2}
  \begin{enumerate}
  \item First item
  \item Second item
  \item Third item
  \item Fourth item
  \item Fifth item
  \item Sixth item
  \item Seventh item
  \item Eighth item
  \item Ninth item
  \item Tenth item
\end{enumerate}
\end{multicols}

\end{document}

Answer 2

The inelegant solution is certainly possible, and it isn't too inelegant as it is possible to remember where we stopped counting and resume it later.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{multicol}

\newcounter{contenum}
\newenvironment{enumeratecont}{%
  \setcounter{contenum}{\theenumi}%
  \enumerate
  \setcounter{enumi}{\thecontenum}%
}{%
  \endenumerate
}

\begin{document}

\begin{multicols}{3}
\begin{enumerate}
\item This is item \arabic{enumi}
\item This is item \arabic{enumi}
\end{enumerate}
\columnbreak

Some text in between the enumeration environments
\columnbreak

\begin{enumeratecont}
\item This is item \arabic{enumi}
\item This is item \arabic{enumi}
\end{enumeratecont}
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

Produces: