Make a column vanish / package parcolumns

Question

I wrote a report in German and English language. It has two columns, German on the left, English on the right side.

Now, I need to produce a word file, but only including the german text. I've got this MWE:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[english, ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{parcolumns}

\newcommand\PC[2]{\parcolumns[distance=2em]{2}%
\colchunk[1]{\selectlanguage{ngerman}#1}%
\colchunk[2]{\selectlanguage{english}#2}% \sffamily ?
 \colplacechunks\addvspace{0.3\baselineskip}}

\begin{document}
\PC{Text auf Deutsch.}{Text in English.}

\end{document}

Maybe somebody has a solution how to redefine the command \PC, so that the english text does not print out. Well, inserting \color{white} is not a solution, because the english text still would be compiled and be part of the PDF.

If I could prevent pdfLaTeX from processing the english text, I'd try to produce a html file using htlatex.

Answer 1

When you want to show only one of the two languages, you don't need to have two columns. So how about \newcommand\PC[2]{{\selectlanguage{ngerman}#1}}? That would, of course, also changes linebreaks, etc.