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I am writing an article in LaTeX and I would like to display some content in two column layout. In the left column a matrix and in the right column a list of items. I have tried with tabular environment but it does not work as I want.

My question is how to create a two column area in a LeTeX document (or something similar) and be able to put certain content to left and right column? I do not want to create a two-column layout for whole document, only for part of it.

gsamaras
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czuk
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    Now there is a new [StackExchange site about Tex](http://tex.stackexchange.com/) and it's derivatives specifically for these kinds of questions. – Sled Mar 22 '14 at 21:56
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    `\documentclass[11pt,twocolumn]{article}` only split the document to two parts automatically. – Nick Dong Apr 02 '20 at 09:56

2 Answers2

211

Load the multicol package, like this \usepackage{multicol}. Then use:

\begin{multicols}{2}
Column 1
\columnbreak
Column 2
\end{multicols}

If you omit the \columnbreak, the columns will balance automatically.

gsamaras
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Rob Hyndman
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    This is great, thanks! However, I have the issue that latex sometimes automatically breaks up a column where I don't want that. Can I set something to prevent that? – xeruf Jun 10 '21 at 20:49
42

Use two minipages.

\begin{minipage}[position]{width}
  text
 \end{minipage}
Jorge Y. C. Rodriguez
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lhf
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    while multicol will work, and works well, if you want specific control of *what* is in the columns, then the minipage idea would probably work best. – Mica Sep 29 '09 at 15:47
  • @Mica This seems like a step away from WYSIWYM. Right? – isomorphismes Sep 05 '13 at 02:53
  • @isomorphismes Yes I suppose it a step away from WYSIWYM... but it works. – Mica Sep 16 '13 at 19:29
  • TeX was never primarily about WYSIWYM, it is a typesetting language after all. Use Org-Mode or Markdown for WYSIWYM. – xeruf Jan 05 '22 at 12:14