columnseprule overhangs the type area

Question

Related Question

• multicols not wrapping to 2nd column properly?

Aim:

I develop a din-a4 questionnaire and want to typeset the questions in a two column layout. As a constraint i don't want columnbreaks or pagebreaks inside a test item. In addition the columns should be separated by a rule.

Current status:

Unfortunately the \columnseprule hangs over the bottom of the type area.

The following MWE illustrates this (look at the bottom of the first output page):

MWE

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{adjustbox}
\usepackage{showframe}

\setlength\parindent{0pt}
\setlength\parskip{1.5ex}
\setlength\parsep{1.5\parskip}
\setlength\fboxsep{0pt}

\newcommand{\drawbox}[2][1] {
   \adjustbox{
     minipage=\linewidth,
     padding=1ex #1 0ex #1,
     center,
     bgcolor=red!20,
     cfbox=red
  }{%
     #2
   }%
}

\begin{document}

\setlength\columnseprule{0.4pt}

\begin{multicols*}{2}
   \foreach \i in {1,...,3} {
      \drawbox[17em]{Item \i}\par
   }
\end{multicols*}

\end{document}

Output:

Question

How can i limit the \columseprule to the typearea?

Answer 1

Harrish showed a solution using a different package, but with respect to your initial example all that is needed is using the latest version of the multicol. I haven't tried to check when that got fixed or what the problem was with the version you used (might have been just with the latest update that reached CTAN just the other day) but if you use that (version 1.8l) then you get

Answer 2

You can use tcolorbox instead of adjustbox then there won't be any problem.

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\usepackage{multicol,lipsum,pgffor}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\usepackage{showframe}

\setlength\parindent{0pt}
\setlength\parskip{1.5ex}
\setlength\parsep{1.5\parskip}

\begin{document}

\setlength\columnseprule{0.4pt}

\begin{multicols*}{2}
   \foreach \i in {1,...,10} {
      \begin{tcolorbox}[colback=red!20,colframe=red,arc=0pt,outer arc=0pt]
        \lipsum[\i]
      \end{tcolorbox}
   }
\end{multicols*}

\end{document}

The details of how to tweak the box style are available in tcolorbox manual.