How does one make a single block of text span two columns using multicols?

Question

I have a document that uses the multicols package to create a 3-column layout with three sections inside. For the first column, I have two sections followed by a column break. For the second and third columns, however, I want to have a section span the width of both the columns. Is there an easy way to do this?

Here's a diagram of what I want the layout to look like:

Col1 Col2 Col3
--- | --------
--- | --------
--- | --------
--- | --------

Edit: Posted answer below.

Do you want to typeset your whole document in this way, or do you just need it for a single page? — Jake, Oct 23 '11 at 03:31
So would it be fair to say that you want a two-column layout, separated into 1/3 and 2/3 of the page width? — cmhughes, Oct 23 '11 at 04:22
@Jake I'm only using it for part of a page (by using \begin{multicols}{3}). — squidbear, Oct 23 '11 at 04:22

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 23 '11 at 06:09

After doing more searching, I discovered that the parcolumns package is able to do what I want.

Preamble:

\usepackage{parcolumns}
\usepackage{lipsum}

Document:

\begin{parcolumns}[sloppy, rulebetween, colwidths={1=0.3\textwidth, 2=0.6\textwidth}, distance={0.1\textwidth}]{2}
\colchunk[1]{%
    \lipsum[1]
}
\colchunk[2]{%
    \lipsum[1]
}
\colplacechunks
\end{parcolumns}

Note: The flowfram package looked promising, but using parcolumns (at least for me) worked better for this.

How does one make a single block of text span two columns using multicols?

1 Answers1