Two different sets of information per column?

Question

Is there any way to create a two column document that has two different sets of material per column?

To be clear, I am not talking a a simple \columnbreak, but rather, you import one bit of text and it only stays in the left column, all the way down, going to new pages rather than new columns as it goes along?

At any time you could add other, unrelated text to the column on the right. A split view of sorts.

Answer 1

Sure, you can do this with paracol:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\usepackage{paracol,lipsum}

\begin{document}

\begin{paracol}{2}
  \lipsum[1]
  \lipsum[2-3]
  \switchcolumn*
  Some text on the right
  \switchcolumn
  \lipsum[4-8]
\end{paracol}

\end{document}