1

I am aggregating a document class for taking Cornell-styled notes. For this purpose, I am using the tcolorbox package and arrange them into two columns. terms on the left and notes related to these terms on the right. Here is an example:

sample of layout

Now I would like to add the possibility of highlighting certain parts of the notes with text in the "margin" introduced with the term column. Something like this:

sample of wanted behavior

Here is the full class as of right now:

\ProvidesClass{cornell}
\LoadClass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\tcbuselibrary
{
    breakable,% Allows tcolorboxes to break across pages
    hooks,% Allows usage of hooks, like having an overlay only for the first part of a broken box
    skins,% Used to style the boxes with tikz
    xparse% Used to define document environments and commands
}


\usepackage[margin=2cm]{geometry} % Change geometry of pages
\usepackage[parfill]{parskip} % Modify parindent and parskip
\usepackage{enumitem} % Modify itemize spacing
\setitemize
{
    itemsep=0pt,
    parsep=2pt,
}


\usepackage{bookmark} % Add bookmarks to the resulting PDF
\usepackage{hyperref}
\hypersetup
{
    colorlinks   = true, % Colour links instead of ugly boxes
    urlcolor     = blue, % Colour for external hyperlinks
    linkcolor    = blue, % Colour of internal links
    citecolor    = red   % Colour of citations
}


\date{}


\tcbset
{
    colframe=black,
    colupper=black,
    opacitybacktitle=1,
    opacitytext=1,
    fonttitle=\large\bfseries\sffamily,
}


\NewTColorBox[]{titlebox}{ o }
{
    width=\textwidth,
    lowerbox=invisible,
    bookmark*={level=0}{@title}
}


\renewcommand{\maketitle}
{
    \vspace{-3em}
    \begin{titlebox}
        \Huge{\sffamily{@title}}
    \end{titlebox}
}


\NewTColorBox[]{extra}{ m }
{
    width=\textwidth,
    title=#1,
    bookmark*={rellevel=1}{#1},
}


\NewTColorBox[]{term}{ m }
{
    width=.325\textwidth,
}


% A note is a tcolorbox in the right column. It may be associated to a
% term which is provided as an optional argument. If a term is provided
% another left-aligned tcolorbox is created with a bookmark.
% It is also possible to give the note itself a title. In this case the
% note tcolorbox is given the provided title and a bookmark for this
% title is created.
\NewTColorBox[]{note}{ o d<> }
{
    enhanced,
    breakable,
    IfValueT={#1}{bookmark={rellevel=1}{#1}},
    IfValueT={#2}{
        bookmark={rellevel=2}{#2},
        title=#2,
    },
    enlarge left by=.34\textwidth,
    width=.66\textwidth,
    parbox=false,% restore main text formatting behavior
    overlay unbroken={
        \IfNoValueF{#1} {%
            \node[anchor=north west, outer sep=0pt, inner sep=0pt] at ([xshift=-.34\textwidth]frame.north west) {
                \begin{term}{#1}
                    #1
                \end{term}
            };
        }{}
    },
    overlay first app={
        \IfNoValueF{#1} {%
            \node[anchor=north west, outer sep=0pt, inner sep=0pt] at ([xshift=-.34\textwidth]frame.north west) {
                \begin{term}{#1}
                    #1
                \end{term}
            };
        }{}
    }
}


\NewDocumentEnvironment{summary}{}
{
    \vfill
    \begin{tcolorbox}[
        floatplacement=!b,
        float,
        title=Summary,
        bookmark*={level=1}{Summary},
        parbox=false,% restore main text formatting behavior
    ]
}
{
    \end{tcolorbox}
}

And here is the sample file:

\documentclass{cornell}

\usepackage{lipsum}


\title{A topic we're taking notes on}


\begin{document}
\maketitle


\begin{extra}{Introduction}
    This can be used to introduce what is about to come, like
    \begin{enumerate}
        \item{What's the first question this section will answer?}
        \item{What's the second question?}
    \end{enumerate}
\end{extra}


\begin{note}[Some key term]
    \begin{itemize}
        \item{A cool thing}
        \item{Another cool thing}
        \item{Not all things are cool}
    \end{itemize}


That has another paragraph.



\end{note}


\begin{note}<This is a titled noted with a very long title that should wrap around>
    \lipsum[10]
\end{note}


\begin{summary}
    A fabulous summary.


With multiple paragraphs.



\end{summary}


\end{document}
L. Resch
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    A simple overlayed and remembered node could be used to do that. – Ignasi Feb 04 '21 at 17:07
  • @Ignasi not really sure what you mean by that. Are these tikz terms? – L. Resch Feb 04 '21 at 18:54
  • Paracol can handle uneven columns over multiple pages, although \switchcolumn* would not allow you to interrupt a tcolorbox in progress. You could just leave one column blank and overlay tikzpictures even with the current baseline. See tikzpagenodes and (current page text area.west). – John Kormylo Feb 05 '21 at 05:42
  • See https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/163567/margin-notes-multicols-tikz-overlay for doing this with normal margins. IIRC, tcolorbox redefines tikzpicture to allow them inside a tcolorbox. – John Kormylo Feb 05 '21 at 05:49
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    I was thinking more along the lines of \marginpar or the \graffito command from the classicthesis package. See this image for an example. – L. Resch Feb 05 '21 at 08:46

1 Answers1

0

It is possible to move the margin into the text area thus creating the wished effect. The details can be seen here.

This is the important part:

\usepackage{geometry} % Change geometry of pages
\usepackage{marginnote} % Used to create notes in the margin
\renewcommand*{\raggedleftmarginnote}{} % Align notes to the left
\reversemarginpar
\geometry{
    margin=2cm,
    marginparsep=-.35\textwidth,
    marginparwidth=.325\textwidth,
}

The result looks like this: the result

L. Resch
  • 45