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Good morning all,

First, since it is my first post, I would like to thank you all for all the information I have found so far on this website that saved my life many times!

However, this time it seems I don't find what I need here, hence the need to ask my first question.

My goal is to have the following:

  • On the top of the first page, having a title box;
  • Then, starting the core content of my article, over two columns;
  • On the bottom of the first page, having an explanatory note (one one column);
  • Then, if the core content of my article is long enough, continuing on following page(s), with the same display as how it started (two columns).

This would look like (sorry for this ugly job):

    Page 1              Page 2 (if any)
 _____________           _____________ 
|    Title    |         |             |
|_____________|         |             |
 _____________          |             |
|             |         |             |
|             |         |     Rest    |
|  Core text  |         |      of     |
|             |         |     Core    |
|_____________|         |     text    |
 _____________          |             |
| Expl. note  |         |             |
|_____________|         |_____________|

I have been looking for this for quite a bit of time, tried a few things, but without any success. The closest I have got to it (which is not much) is what follows.

I imagine the solution is to use tcolorbox, but I am only a beginner with it and I haven't found anything to go any further than what follows. It's not so far from what I need (although maybe a bid dirty), but I would like to ensure that, on the second and third pages, the tcolorbox does not stop at 19cm and goes to the bottom of the page.

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{lipsum, xcolor}
\usepackage[most]{tcolorbox}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage[absolute]{textpos} 
\usepackage[left=1cm, right=1cm, top=2cm, bottom=2cm]{geometry}


\begin{document}


\begin{center}
        \begin{tcolorbox}[
        enhanced jigsaw,
        size=small,
        notitle,
        colframe=green,
        colback=green,
        fonttitle=\bfseries,
        sharp corners
        ]
        \begin{center}
            \begin{minipage}{20cm}
            \color{white}
            \textbf{\Large{My Title}}
        \end{minipage}
        \end{center}
    \end{tcolorbox}
\end{center}


\begin{center}
    \textblockcolour{blue}
    \begin{textblock}{18.5cm}[0.5,1](10.5cm, 26cm)
        \begin{center}
            \begin{minipage}{18cm}
                \scriptsize \textbf{Explanatory note title} \

                \tiny{
                    \lipsum[1-3].

                    }
            \end{minipage}
        \end{center}
    \end{textblock}
\end{center}


\begin{multicols}{2}\footnotesize
    \begin{tcolorbox}[enhanced jigsaw,
    size=small,
    vfill before first, 
    notitle,
    colframe=white,
    colback=white,
    height fixed for=first,
    break at=21cm,
    breakable,
    pad at break=1mm]
        \lipsum[1-45]
\end{tcolorbox}
\end{multicols}


\end{document}

I really sincerely thank you if you can help me, and wish you in any case an excellent day!

Simon

Simon
  • 245
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    I would use a floating element (for example figure* without caption in article class, or use one of the packages to create a new float) with [t]op position for the title, another with [b]bottom position for the explanatory, and then write normally for the rest. Maybe you'll need to tweak a bit the float positioning parameters... (no time now). – Rmano Mar 01 '21 at 08:49
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    Anyway, if you spend a bit of time creating a minimal working example (MWE), it would simplify life for people trying to help... – Rmano Mar 01 '21 at 08:50
  • Thank you very much Rmano for your reply, and for your advice - it actually works quite well. I probably have to dig a bit deeper into what figure* allows, but in the end it should do. I am also sorry I did not simplify the MWE enough, now it should look better. – Simon Mar 01 '21 at 09:28
  • for the core and explanatory notes this should suffice -- https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/585249/197451 – js bibra Mar 01 '21 at 10:18
  • Hmmm, not so easy to do --- there is no figure*[b] in 2 columns. Maybe using fancyheaders on the first page is a better bet. Also this: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/355586/38080 could be useful – Rmano Mar 01 '21 at 15:47
  • I don't need the bottom text to be in two columns, so your solution works perfectly well, Rmano - thank you again ! – Simon Mar 01 '21 at 15:49

0 Answers0