# Rescaling column widths in beamerposter package

I'm trying to make a poster with three columns. The left-most and right-most columns should be the same width, and the middle column should be wider than the other two. The poster should be 44 x 36 in. However, when I set my lengths to three columns in the new poster size, one column gets cut off:

Here's my preamble for setting the length and widths:

``````\newlength{\sepwid}
\newlength{\onecolwid}
\newlength{\twocolwid}
%\newlength{\threecolwid}
\setlength{\paperwidth}{44in} % A0 width: 46.8in
\setlength{\paperheight}{36in} % A0 height: 33.1in
\setlength{\sepwid}{0.02\paperwidth} % Separation width (white space) between columns
\setlength{\onecolwid}{0.306\paperwidth} % Width of one column
\setlength{\twocolwid}{0.4\paperwidth} % Width of two columns
%\setlength{\threecolwid}{0.7\paperwidth} % Width of three columns
\setlength{\topmargin}{-1.0in} % Reduce the top margin size
``````

How can I fix this?

• Did my answer solve your problem? – jonas-schulze Mar 20 '16 at 15:08

Your problem is that the total width is too high: 2*onecolwidth + twocolwidth + 4*sepwidth = 1.092 paperwidth. You can fix it by `\setlength{\twocolwidth}{0.308\paperwidth}` or by
``````\setlength{\twocolwidth}{\paperwidth}
Maybe you should load the `calc` package or something similar.