Individual widths in package multicol

Question

Is there any way I can manipulate the widths of the columns in a multicol environment individualy? So for example that in a \begin{muticols}{2} the left column is the double size of the right one?

Answer 1

For a single page the package vwcol (vari­able-width mul­ti­ple text columns) make is what you're looking for.

 \documentclass{article} 
 \usepackage[margin=2cm]{geometry}
 \usepackage{lipsum}
 \usepackage{microtype}
 \usepackage{vwcol}  
 \begin{document} 
 \begin{vwcol}[widths={0.6,0.4},
 sep=.8cm, justify=flush,rule=0pt,indent=1em] 
 \lipsum[1-8] 
 \end{vwcol} 
 \end{document} 

For multiple pages the suggested flowfram package can help, but mostly with columns (frames) of different heights and places but the same width. Unfortunately the width of a paragraph cannot be changed when jump to a column of different width (the change in \hsize will not come into effect until the end of the paragraph), so it must be simulate a paragraph break with \framebreak or specified the exact point where the text paragraphs jump to the next column (with \newpage or pagebrak[4] or \finishthispage in the last column).

In the next example, the capture show when the first \newpage is commented to explain the problem (otherwise the ouput is roughly similar to the first example, but the columns are not balanced in this case).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[margin=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{flowfram}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{microtype}

\newflowframe[1-5]
{0.60\textwidth}{\textheight}
{0pt}{0pt}[leftcolumn]

\newflowframe[1-5]{0.30\textwidth}{\textheight}
{0.65\textwidth}{0pt}[rightcolumn]

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-5]
\newpage 
\lipsum[6-8]
\newpage
\lipsum[9-12]
\end{document}