5

I have a long document that I don't want to use twocolumn mode for, but I like the margins it uses. I'm going to manually use multicol to create two columns instead (so I can easily have footnotes and other things be a single column).

Compare

\documentclass[12pt,twocolumn]{memoir}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

to

\documentclass[12pt]{memoir}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{multicol}

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\lipsum
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

The second has much wider default margins. Is there a way to see what the margins are in a given memoir document and copy them into another one?

(The reason I'm doing this is because this question leads me to believe that the twocolumn option doesn't really do what I need.

6
  • Although this question was for KOMA-Script see this answer: Overview of Margins in KOMA Script/TypeArea and test the packages.
    – Speravir
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:16
  • Oh, layout is wrong, and layouts lacks relevant information.
    – Speravir
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:24
  • Those get me closer to what I was asking about, but now I suspect I'm asking the wrong question. Since all I'm trying to do is get full-page-width footnotes (like multicol does), perhaps that's what I should aim for.
    – bombcar
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:26
  • @Speravir Do those packages work independently of KOMA-Script? Could you use them with the standard LaTeX classes in conjunction with geometry?
    – cfr
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:49
  • @cfr: They should. Both are not from KOMA-Script, just the question was for it.
    – Speravir
    Mar 16, 2014 at 2:19

1 Answer 1

6

memoir offers facilities which I think provide the information you want (p25 of the documentation).

\documentclass[12pt,twocolumn]{memoir}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\settypeoutlayoutunit{mm}% note: needs to come *first* to have any effect (documentation is wrong)
\typeoutlayout
\typeoutstandardlayout
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

Then the output includes this information:

******************************************************
Stock height and width: 279.39671mm by 215.89746mm
Top and edge trims: 0mm and 0mm
Page height and width: 279.39671mm by 215.89746mm
Text height and width: 192.77344mm by 164.83272mm
Spine and edge margins: 20.47931mm and 30.58543mm
Upper and lower margins: 43.80676mm and 42.8165mm
Headheight and headsep: 5.0961mm and 6.98476mm
Footskip: 10.54367mm
Columnsep and columnseprule: 3.51456mm and 0mm
Marginparsep and marginparwidth: 3.51456mm and 16.86987mm
Sidecapsep and sidecapwidth: 3.51456mm and 16.86987mm
Sidebarhsep and sidebarwidth: 3.51456mm and 16.86987mm
Sidebarvsep and sidebartopsep: 5.0961mm and 0mm
Sidebarheight: 192.12323mm
Sidefoothsep and sidefootwidth: 3.51456mm and 16.86987mm
Sidefootvsep and sidefootheight: 5.0961mm and 192.12323mm
******************************************************


******************************************************
Page height and width: 279.39671mm by 215.89746mm
Text height and width: 192.77344mm by 164.83272mm
Oddside and evenside margins: -4.92038mm and 4.92038mm
Topmargin and footskip: 6.3262mm and 10.54367mm
Headheight and headsep: 5.0961mm and 6.98476mm
Columnsep and columnseprule: 3.51456mm and 0mm
Marginparsep and marginparwidth: 3.51456mm and 16.86987mm
******************************************************

So I think you want something like this:

\documentclass[12pt]{memoir}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\setlength{\textwidth}{164.83272mm}
\setlength{\marginparsep}{3.51456mm}
\setlength{\marginparwidth}{16.86987mm}
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-4.92038mm}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{4.92038mm}
\settypeoutlayoutunit{mm}
\typeoutlayout
\typeoutstandardlayout
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

In the image below the pages are reversed from normal positioning i.e. my viewer puts the odd pages on the left rather than the right - hence the odd spacing effect.

Single column with twocolumn spacing

Note that this flies in the face of memoir's raison d'être...

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  • Ah, I've seen that. However, those values seem to NOT actually be set in pt but in something else. What is exactly 794.96999pt - it doesn't seem to be an exact number of inches.
    – bombcar
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:38
  • Oh I see - those aren't postscript points.
    – bombcar
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:40
  • I actually thought there would be something, because layouts is originally from Peter Wilson like memoir originated from him, too.
    – Speravir
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:42
  • @bombcar: Postscript points are known as big points (bp) in TeX world.
    – Speravir
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:43
  • @bombcar See edits. In fact, you need to set the units before the other commands - the documentation is wrong. It only seemed to work because pt is default. I've switched to mm as this is a lot clearer. Note that the numbers are not integers because TeX defaults to letterpaper which isn't specified in mm. The pt numbers were correct. Just it is more obvious in 'real' units.
    – cfr
    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:44

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