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I am looking for a LaTeX template that can be used for a brochure-like newsletter, A4 format, column-like design with optional spanning pictures, marginless pictures, marginless headlines.

I browsed a lot of repositories with Latex templates, however, most of them look too much like Latex, i.e. exhibit much too much text and standard margins. I like to focus on an elegant layout, few text, impressive pictures.

I am experienced with LateX layouting for scientific use. But this is my first reach to public outreach and I have not a single clue about how to achieve the goal. My first idea would be just using tikz pictures and text fields, but this is not an elegant way of typesetting, and as far as I know text field boxes do not float due to their fixed size.

It is important to do it in Latex rather than InDesign or Corel, because contents should be created with Markdown on a regular, automated basis.

Here is my imagination of the layout: enter image description here

Martin
  • 842
  • Hm, perhaps the magazine feature of tcolorbox might help here. I never tried it, however. –  Feb 29 '16 at 20:51
  • Will everything fit on one page? Seems like this would be easy with some tabulars plus whatever the big 'Lorem ipsum' lines are (headers? captions?). However, for complex *TeX documents, I do not endorse insisting on markdown as the input. Markdown (in my opinion) is good for simple, consistent documents, not complex ones and, a fortiori, not for brochures. (Of course, I'm not saying it is impossible, only that it adds unnecessary constraints.) – jon Feb 29 '16 at 22:24
  • maybe one of the many poster classes (http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/341/how-to-create-posters-using-latex) will be usefull, e.g., http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/115520/89417 which looks somewhat like your layout, and is based on beamer which means you can add more pages by creating new beamer frames. – Marijn Feb 29 '16 at 22:35
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    Never used or teste, but did you look at papertex – Ignasi Feb 29 '16 at 22:53
  • https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/159742/7883 – Thérèse Feb 29 '16 at 23:56
  • @jon It is planned to have 2 pages = 1 sheet duplex. The big lines are headers, yes. The idea to use Markdown is based on the fact that text and pictures come from a database and should be fed into (1) a printable pdf, (2) a web page, (3) an ASCII file. But this issue should not be related to this question, any tex solution would help. – Martin Mar 01 '16 at 12:22

1 Answers1

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This is a workaround I found to be handy enough for most needs. However, it is not perfect and I am still open for other suggestions.

enter image description here

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{xcolor} % allow color!ratio
\usepackage{hyperref} % allow phantomsection

%%% figures
\usepackage{graphicx} % includegraphics
\usepackage{float} % minipage float

%%% Geometry    
\usepackage[includeheadfoot,left=0cm, right=0cm,
    top=0cm, bottom=0cm, headheight=70pt,
    headsep=0cm,footskip=0cm]{geometry}

%%% Head & Foot
\usepackage{fancyhdr}

\fancypagestyle{mypages}{%
    \fancyhf{}
    \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
    \fancyhead[L]{%
    \strut\rlap{\color{gray}\rule[-2\dp\strutbox]{\headwidth}{\headheight}}%
    \quad\raisebox{-0.05\height}{\includegraphics[scale=1]{logo.pdf}}%
    \fontsize{25pt}{30pt}\selectfont
     \textcolor{white}{$\;$ version \bfseries 5}
    \textcolor{gray!30}{ \bfseries: Newsletter}
    }
    \fancyhead[R]{\color{white}page \bfseries\thepage\quad}
    \fancyfoot{}
}
\pagestyle{mypages}

% sections
\usepackage[explicit]{titlesec}
    \titleformat{name=\section}
        {% format
            \pagebreak[3]
            \vspace{1em}
            \color{gray!10}\titlerule[6pt]\color{black}
            \vspace*{2em}
            \huge
            \bfseries }
        {} % label
        {0em} % label sep
        {\hspace{0.05\textwidth}%
        \parbox[t]{0.9\textwidth}{\raggedright#1}}
        [\phantomsection] % before

% Disclaimer box
\newenvironment{bottompar}{\par\vspace*{\fill}}{\clearpage}

%%%
\begin{document}

% Introduction
\setlength{\fboxsep}{15pt}
\noindent\colorbox{gray!20}{\parbox[t]{\dimexpr\textwidth-30pt}{\color{gray}
    This is a newsletter presenting interesting topics.
}}\vspace*{-1cm}

% Content

\section{Long and catchy headline for article 1}
\noindent\begin{minipage}[t]{0.5\textwidth}\vspace{-2em}
\begin{figure}[H]%
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{foto.jpg}
\end{figure}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.03\textwidth}
\noindent\begin{minipage}[t]{0.4\textwidth}
    \lipsum[1-2]
\end{minipage}

\section{Long and catchy headline for article 2}
\noindent\begin{minipage}[t]{0.5\textwidth}\vspace{-2em}
\begin{figure}[H]%
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{foto.jpg}
\end{figure}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.03\textwidth}
\noindent\begin{minipage}[t]{0.4\textwidth}
    \lipsum[1]
\end{minipage}

\section{Long and catchy headline for article 3}
\noindent\begin{minipage}[t]{0.5\textwidth}\vspace{-2em}
\begin{figure}[H]%
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{foto.jpg}
\end{figure}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.03\textwidth}
\noindent\begin{minipage}[t]{0.4\textwidth}
    \lipsum[1-3]
\end{minipage}

% Disclaimer
\begin{bottompar}
\setlength{\fboxsep}{15pt}
\noindent\colorbox{gray!20}{\parbox[t]{\dimexpr\textwidth-30pt}{\color{gray}
    This is the disclaimer for this great newsletter \hfill \copyright{} 2016}}
\end{bottompar}

\end{document}
Martin
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