How do I find memoir's margin settings for twocolumn mode?

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.

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