How to write a title/abstract spanning 2 columns in 3-column page using multicol?

Question

My article requires that I put the title and a small abstract spanning the left 2 columns in a 3-column page, that is, the 3rd column to the right of the title/summary block must follow with the body text from the second column at the end of the page. I'm using multicol package. This problem is easy and has been solved for 2-column page, either with twocolumn option in \documentclass or multicol.

Answer 1

The flowfram package allows for this sort of thing without much problem. The following is taken partially from Three-columns text with figures of 2\columnwidth:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[landscape,margin=1cm]{geometry}% http://ctan.org/pkg/geometry
\usepackage{flowfram}% http://ctan.org/pkg/flowfram
\usepackage{lipsum}% http://ctan.org/pkg/lipsum

% First page setup    
\newstaticframe[1]{0.65\textwidth}{0.35\textheight}
  {0pt}{0.65\textheight}[titleabstract]
\newflowframe[1]{0.30\textwidth}{0.65\textheight}
  {0pt}{0pt}[shortleftcolumn]
\newflowframe[1]{0.30\textwidth}{0.65\textheight}
  {0.35\textwidth}{0pt}[shortcentercolumn]

% Subsequent pages setup    
\newflowframe[2-30]{0.30\textwidth}{\textheight}
  {0pt}{0pt}[leftcolumn]
\newflowframe[2-30]{0.30\textwidth}{\textheight}
  {0.35\textwidth}{0pt}[centercolum]
\newflowframe{0.30\textwidth}{\textheight}
  {0.7\textwidth}{0pt}[rightcolumn]

\begin{document}

\begin{staticcontents*}{titleabstract}
\begin{center}
  {\Large\bfseries This is the title\par}
  A.\ N.\ Author \par
  \today
\end{center}

\begin{abstract}
\lipsum[1]
\end{abstract}
\end{staticcontents*}

\lipsum[1-30]

\end{document}

The title and abstract is contained within the first \newstaticframe called titleabstract, which has a height of 0.35\textheight. If you which to add more content, you may have to increase this, and decrease the height of shortleftcolumn and shortcentercolumn.