1

I posted a too general question (Change margins locally (for text)), but my need is to solve about a particular environment, for I have to obtain some verses (original and translation) in parallel lines. Please, consider this code:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage[babelshorthands=true]{italian}
\setotherlanguage[variant=polytonic]{greek}
\newfontfamily\greekfont[Scale=MatchLowercase]{GFS Didot}
\usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{changepage}

\usepackage{parallel}
\newenvironment{verseparallel}[2]
{\begin{Parallel}{}{}\footnotesize\parindent=0pt
\ParallelLText{\leavevmode#1}\ParallelRText{#2}}
{\end{Parallel}}

\begin{document}

\begin{adjustwidth}{-1cm}{-1cm}
\begin{verseparallel}
{\begin{greek}%
τὸν δ᾽ Ἄργος προσέειπεν ἀμηχανέων κακότητι:\\
‘Αἰολίδην Φρίξον τιν᾽ ἀφ᾽ Ἑλλάδος Αἶαν ἱκέσθαι\\
ἀτρεκέως δοκέω που ἀκούετε καὶ πάρος αὐτοί,\\
Φρίξον, ὅτις πτολίεθρον ἀνήλυθεν Αἰήταο,\\
κριοῦ ἐπεμβεβαώς, τόν ῥα χρύσειον ἔθηκεν\\
Ἑρμείας: κῶας δὲ καὶ εἰσέτι νῦν κεν ἴδοισθε.\\
τὸν μὲν ἔπειτ᾽ ἔρρεξεν ἑῇς ὑποθημοσύνῃσιν\\
Φυξίῳ ἐκ πάντων Κρονίδῃ Διί. καί μιν ἔδεκτο\end{greek}
}
{%
Vi era già prima noto, credo, che Frisso, nipote di Eolo,\\
venne ad Eete della Grecia; Frisso che giunse alla città di Eete,\\
cavalcando un montone che fu mutato da Ermes in oro,\\
e il vello potete ancora oggi vederlo\\
disteso sui folti rami di una quercia; poi,\\
come il montone stesso chiese,\\
lo sacrificò a Zeus, il figlio di Cronos,\\
nella sua veste di protettore di esuli.}
\end{verseparallel}
\end{adjustwidth}

\end{document}

For changepage uses a list environment, I don't know how to fix my code. Infact I receive the following error:

! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              

l.40 \end{adjustwidth}

? ^[[A

ADDENDUM

Yes (here it's not relevant the columns width), but consider this code:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage[babelshorthands=true]{italian}
\setotherlanguage[variant=polytonic]{greek}
\newfontfamily\greekfont[Scale=MatchLowercase]{GFS Didot}
\usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{parallel}
\newenvironment{verseparallel}[2]
{\begin{Parallel}{0.45\textwidth}{0.51\textwidth}\footnotesize\parindent=0pt
\ParallelLText{\leavevmode#1}\ParallelRText{#2}}
{\end{Parallel}}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]

\newgeometry{lmargin=1.2cm,rmargin=1.2cm}
\begin{verseparallel}
{\begin{greek}%
τὸν δ᾽ Ἄργος προσέειπεν ἀμηχανέων κακότητι:\\
‘Αἰολίδην Φρίξον τιν᾽ ἀφ᾽ Ἑλλάδος Αἶαν ἱκέσθαι\\
ἀτρεκέως δοκέω που ἀκούετε καὶ πάρος αὐτοί,\\
Φρίξον, ὅτις πτολίεθρον ἀνήλυθεν Αἰήταο,\\
κριοῦ ἐπεμβεβαώς, τόν ῥα χρύσειον ἔθηκεν\\
Ἑρμείας: κῶας δὲ καὶ εἰσέτι νῦν κεν ἴδοισθε.\\
τὸν μὲν ἔπειτ᾽ ἔρρεξεν ἑῇς ὑποθημοσύνῃσιν\\
Φυξίῳ ἐκ πάντων Κρονίδῃ Διί. καί μιν ἔδεκτο\end{greek}
}
{%
Vi era già prima noto, credo, che Frisso, nipote di Eolo,\\
venne ad Eete della Grecia; Frisso che giunse alla città di Eete,\\
cavalcando un montone che fu mutato da Ermes in oro,\\
e il vello potete ancora oggi vederlo\\
disteso sui folti rami di una quercia; poi,\\
come il montone stesso chiese,\\
lo sacrificò a Zeus, il figlio di Cronos,\\
nella sua veste di protettore di esuli.}
\end{verseparallel}
\restoregeometry

\lipsum[2]
\end{document}

You'll realize that \newgeometry breaks the page. Maybe, with changepage is possible to produce an enlargement of a single part of page without breaking it in two different pages. I've a lot of bilingual quotations, some very small, and they have to stay in the same page, with the "normal" italian text

1 Answer 1

2

You might just tell it to begin by making a box containing nothing:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage[babelshorthands=true]{italian}
\setotherlanguage[variant=polytonic]{greek}
\newfontfamily\greekfont[Scale=MatchLowercase]{GFSDidot.otf}
\usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{changepage}

\usepackage{parallel}
\newenvironment{verseparallel}[2]
{\begin{Parallel}{}{}\footnotesize\parindent=0pt
\ParallelLText{\leavevmode#1}\ParallelRText{#2}}
{\end{Parallel}}

\begin{document}

\begin{adjustwidth}{-1cm}{-1cm}
\mbox{}%
\begin{verseparallel}
{\begin{greek}%
τὸν δ᾽ Ἄργος προσέειπεν ἀμηχανέων κακότητι:\\
‘Αἰολίδην Φρίξον τιν᾽ ἀφ᾽ Ἑλλάδος Αἶαν ἱκέσθαι\\
ἀτρεκέως δοκέω που ἀκούετε καὶ πάρος αὐτοί,\\
Φρίξον, ὅτις πτολίεθρον ἀνήλυθεν Αἰήταο,\\
κριοῦ ἐπεμβεβαώς, τόν ῥα χρύσειον ἔθηκεν\\
Ἑρμείας: κῶας δὲ καὶ εἰσέτι νῦν κεν ἴδοισθε.\\
τὸν μὲν ἔπειτ᾽ ἔρρεξεν ἑῇς ὑποθημοσύνῃσιν\\
Φυξίῳ ἐκ πάντων Κρονίδῃ Διί. καί μιν ἔδεκτο\end{greek}
}
{%
Vi era già prima noto, credo, che Frisso, nipote di Eolo,\\
venne ad Eete della Grecia; Frisso che giunse alla città di Eete,\\
cavalcando un montone che fu mutato da Ermes in oro,\\
e il vello potete ancora oggi vederlo\\
disteso sui folti rami di una quercia; poi,\\
come il montone stesso chiese,\\
lo sacrificò a Zeus, il figlio di Cronos,\\
nella sua veste di protettore di esuli.}
\end{verseparallel}
\end{adjustwidth}

\end{document}

The output is too wide but that's a different problem:

Too wide...

6
  • I changed the font command because my system could not find GFS Didot whereas it can find GFSDidot.otf. I assume this is because I only have the font in the texmf tree and not as a system font.
    – cfr
    Apr 17, 2014 at 2:06
  • Your solution works for margins, but I need two (and not three) columns, as from parallel, with whole text: first column, whole greek test, second one translation. On the contrary, with your code I obtain three column and the Italian translation text is not complete
    – user41063
    Apr 17, 2014 at 8:12
  • @user41063 I just took your original code and adjusted the width. I didn't touch the number of columns at all.
    – cfr
    Apr 17, 2014 at 13:20
  • Yes, but the result is different. With my code text columns are (correctly) two, inserting a mbox three and a part of Italian translation is missing. I'd like to understand if it's possible to solve with changepage package, but at present using it I receive the error quoted in my first post
    – user41063
    Apr 17, 2014 at 15:22
  • Hmm... I got the three columns and missing part without adding \mbox{}. All adding it did was allowed it to compile without error - the output was identical. Not that it solves the problem but it didn't create any additional problem for me. Just it only resolved the error problem, not the mess problem.
    – cfr
    Apr 17, 2014 at 15:33

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