Split itemize into multiple columns

Question

Is it possible to split an itemize list into several columns? (I'm sure it is, but I couldn't find a solution around here)

And additionally: Is it possible to automatically split a list into multiple columns if it reaches a certain item length?

For example, I want to display

item1
item2
item3

instead of

item1   item2   item3

while this should still happen:

item1   item4
item2   item5
item3   item6

Answer 1

Here is some code that does the automatic column adjust thing, I used the code found in "count and use the number of items in advance" to help me.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{etoolbox,refcount}
\usepackage{multicol}

\newcounter{countitems}
\newcounter{nextitemizecount}
\newcommand{\setupcountitems}{%
  \stepcounter{nextitemizecount}%
  \setcounter{countitems}{0}%
  \preto\item{\stepcounter{countitems}}%
}
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\computecountitems}{%
  \edef\@currentlabel{\number\c@countitems}%
  \label{countitems@\number\numexpr\value{nextitemizecount}-1\relax}%
}
\newcommand{\nextitemizecount}{%
  \getrefnumber{countitems@\number\c@nextitemizecount}%
}
\newcommand{\previtemizecount}{%
  \getrefnumber{countitems@\number\numexpr\value{nextitemizecount}-1\relax}%
}
\makeatother    
\newenvironment{AutoMultiColItemize}{%
\ifnumcomp{\nextitemizecount}{>}{3}{\begin{multicols}{2}}{}%
\setupcountitems\begin{itemize}}%
{\end{itemize}%
\unskip\computecountitems\ifnumcomp{\previtemizecount}{>}{3}{\end{multicols}}{}}

\begin{document}

\begin{itemize}
    \item Here are two columns
  \begin{AutoMultiColItemize}
  \item Item 1
  \item Item 2
  \item Item 3
  \item Item 4
  \item Item 5
  \item Item 6
  \end{AutoMultiColItemize}
  \item AutoMultiColItemize can be nested in an itemize
  \item Or it does not have to be.
  \item Normal itemize, like this one, are still single column.
\end{itemize}
Here is one column
\begin{AutoMultiColItemize}
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 3
\end{AutoMultiColItemize}

\end{document}

Here is what it looks like:

Answer 2

Since you want multiple columns, you should use the multicol package:

Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multicol}

\begin{document}
Two columns:
    \begin{multicols}{2}
    \begin{itemize}
        \item item 1
        \item item 2
        \item item 3
        \item item 4
        \item item 5
        \item item 6
    \end{itemize}
    \end{multicols}
    
Three columns:
    \begin{multicols}{3}
    \begin{itemize}
        \item item 1
        \item item 2
        \item item 3
        \item item 4
        \item item 5
        \item item 6
    \end{itemize}
    \end{multicols}
\end{document}

Answer 3

Use multicol. If your items do not divide evenly into each column, add \item[\vspace{\fill}] to the end of your list to align the items.

---

The multicol package solution from AboAmmar works well if your enumerate items can be divided evenly into each column.

However, spacing between items can become inconsistent if each column does not hold an equal number of items. For example, dividing 7 items between 2 columns:

One can fix this easily by adding an 'empty' item at the end of the list as padding.

\item[\vspace{\fill}]

Which produces the following nicely aligned multi-columned enumerate list:

\documentclass[preview]{standalone}
\usepackage{multicol}
\begin{document}

\begin{multicols}{2}
  \begin{enumerate}
    \item one  \item two \item three \item four
    \item five \item six \item seven \item[\vspace{\fill}]
  \end{enumerate}
\end{multicols}

\end{document}

Answer 4

A quick possible solution is using the minipage environment as follows:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}
\begin{document}

\begin{itemize}
\begin{minipage}{0.4\linewidth}
    \item item 1
    \item item 2
    \item item 3
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}{0.4\linewidth}
    \item item 4
    \item item 5
    \item item 6
\end{minipage}
\end{itemize}

\end{document}

This outputs:

Answer 5

For the first question, you can do that with the tasks package, that was formerly part of the exsheets bundle. If you use MiKTeX, beware it requires the cntformats package (from the same author), that's not (yet) part of MiKTeX. To answer Werner's question, it can break across pages.Here is an example of how it works:

\documentclass[twoside, a4paper]{report}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[x11names]{xcolor}
\usepackage{fourier}
\usepackage[noheadfoot, nomarginpar, showframe]{geometry}

\usepackage{tasks}
 \DeclareInstance{tasks}{myitemize}{default}
 {
enumerate = false ,
label-width = 1.125em,
label-offset = 0.6em,
label-format = \bfseries\color{IndianRed3}
 }

\settasks{style = myitemize, column-sep = 2em}%
\pagestyle{plain}%


\begin{document}

\begin{tasks}(3)
    \task First item
    \task A second item
    \task A third one
    \task A second series, item 1
    \task Second series, item 2
    \task Second series, item 3
\end{tasks}

\end{document} 

Another solution would use the shortlst package, which is not part of any distribution for license reasons, so that you have to install it yourself. I patched it so as to be able to choose the number of columns with a key nc=value (3 by default) and the interline stretch il=value (1.33 by default).

The main advantage of this package is that if an item is longer than the column width it automatically spreads over two (or more) columns. Alternatively an item can be put in a parbox of width column width. I introduced a \paritem command, that takes as an optional argument the number of columns the item will spread over.

\documentclass[twoside, a4paper]{report}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[x11names]{xcolor}
\usepackage{fourier}
\usepackage[nohead, nomarginpar, showframe]{geometry}

\pagestyle{plain}%

\usepackage{ragged2e}

\usepackage{shortlst, setspace, xkeyval}

\makeatletter
\newcounter{ncol}
\define@key{lex}{nc}[3]{\setcounter{ncol}{#1}}%% 3 columns by default
\define@key{lex}{il}[1.33]{\def\@intln{#1}}% interlining![1]
\newenvironment{tabitemize}[1][]{%
\setkeys{lex}{nc,il,#1}
\settowidth{\labelwidth}{\quad\textbullet}
\setlength{\leftmargini}{\dimexpr\labelwidth+\labelsep\relax}%[1][3]
\setlength{\shortitemwidth}{\dimexpr\linewidth/\value{ncol}-\labelwidth-2\labelsep\relax}%
\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{\textcolor{Tomato3}{\bfseries\textbullet}}
\setstretch{\@intln}
\begin{shortitemize}}%
{\end{shortitemize}
 }%
 \newcommand\paritem[2][2]{\item \parbox[t]{\dimexpr#1\shortitemwidth + (2\labelsep + \labelwidth)*\numexpr#1-1\relax}{\setstretch{1}#2}}
\makeatother
\usepackage{lipsum} 

\begin{document}
\vspace*{1 cm}

\begin{tabitemize}
    \item First item
    \item A second, much longer item
    \item A third, short item
    \paritem[2]{A second series, with a much longer item. \lipsum[2]}%
    \item Second series, item 4\strut
    \item Second series, third item, a much much longer item\strut
    \item Second series, fourthr item\strut
\end{tabitemize}

\end{document} 

Answer 6

Here is javascript code for TeXstudio macro that can do from this

One, two, three,
B is for bee. One, two,
The bee is near you. 

automatically to this (multicol package is required)

\begin{enumerate}
    \begin{multicols}{3}
        \item One, two, three,
        \item B is for bee. One, two,
        \item The bee is near you.
    \end{multicols}
\end{enumerate} 

Maximal number of columns and enviroment (enumerate or itemize) can be chosen by colmax and type variables.

%SCRIPT
var colmax = 4; //maximal number of columns
var type = 0; //0 for enumerate, 1 for itemize
var lt, c, d, n, out;
var txt = cursor.selectedText();
if (type == 0) lt = 'enumerate';
else lt = 'itemize';
function srch(re, str) {
       if (str.search(re) != -1)
          return 1;
       else
          return 0;}
var itarr = [srch(/enumerate/g, txt), srch(/itemize/g, txt), srch(/item/g, txt)]
var sum = itarr.reduce(add, 0);
function add(a, b) {return a + b;}
if (sum == 2)
    c = 2, d = 2;
    else if (sum == 1)
        c = 1, d = 0;   
    else {
        c = 0, d = 0;
        txt=txt.replace(/\n/g, '\n\\item ');}
txt.replace('\t','');
n = txt.split('\n').length-d;
for (n; n>colmax; n = 0.5*n);
n = Math.round(n);
cursor.removeSelectedText();
var p = ['\\begin{'+lt+'}\n', '\\begin{multicols}{'+n+'}\n', '\\item ', txt, '\n\\end{multicols}', '\n\\end{'+lt+'}'];
if (c == 2) out = [p[1], p[3], p[4]];
else if (c == 1) out = [p[0], p[1], p[3], p[4], p[5]];
else out = p;
editor.write(out.join(''));