mark@motown.altair.fr (Mark James) (06/08/91)
Graphic designers sometimes talk about dividing a page layout into "ninths" -- that is, three horizontal bands and three vertical columns. Is there any LaTeX style file to support this idea? George Greenwade's threecolumn.sty is a start, but it doesn't allow text to span *two of* the three columns, which is something that is common especially in advertising. In general, text, images or other floats should be able to occupy one, two or three columns, and should be restricted to one, two or three of the horizontal bands as well; an ideal style file (or TeX macros?) would provide badness warnings for layouts that violated these rules. Has anything been done in this area? If not, and if I have the time to rig up something myself, would anyone else be interested? Graphic designers generally prefer the Mac to TeX/LaTeX, but TeX's output (if done well) looks much more professional. All we need are some decent tools and the willingness to hassle with a non-WYSIWYG interface. (And -- hope, hope, one day? -- color.) -- === T. Mark James ==== opinions, errors etc are my own === === mark@bdblues.altair.fr ==== "I'm stupid enough to try anything === +33 (1) 39 63 53 93 ==== once." -- The `Bag Man' ================================ Univ. of Washington, 1968