14

I'd like to split an A4 page into six equally sized sectors. I want that page to be in landscape. Each sector has a body of text and a caption.

I don't really have an idea where to start. I know I can split a page in to columns, but I need like six minipages, all equally arranged on one paper. The only idea I could come up with, is to use a0poster and then size it down for print. I think however, this is overkill; isn't there a better way to do that?

I'm preferably using XeLaTeX, if that is of any importance.

polemon
  • 3,555
  • 4
  • 32
  • 42

3 Answers3

19

You can use six minipages; I defined a \Block command using a minipage of the desired width and length with two arguments: the text and the caption (make the necessary formatting adjustments). I added some frames just for visualization purposes (and they will produce some overfull boxes); please delete the lines marked with %delete:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[landscape]{geometry}

\newcommand\Block[2]{%
\setlength\fboxsep{0pt}\setlength\fboxrule{0.1pt}% delete
\fbox{% delete
\begin{minipage}[c][.5\textheight][t]{0.333333\textwidth}
#1\par #2
\end{minipage}%
  }% delete
}

\begin{document}
\noindent
\Block{text}{caption}%
\Block{text}{caption}%
\Block{text}{caption}%
\par\nointerlineskip\noindent
\Block{text}{caption}%
\Block{text}{caption}%
\Block{text}{caption}
\end{document}

enter image description here

To meet the requirements in the comment:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[margin=3cm,centering,landscape]{geometry}

\newcommand\Block[2]{%
\setlength\fboxsep{0pt}\setlength\fboxrule{0.1pt}% delete
\fbox{% delete
\begin{minipage}[c][\dimexpr.5\textheight-2pt\relax][c]{\dimexpr0.3333333\textwidth-3pt\relax}
\centering
#1\par #2
\end{minipage}%
  }% delete
}

\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}% optional: suppress page numbering

\noindent
\Block{text}{caption}\hfill%
\Block{text}{caption}\hfill%
\Block{text}{caption}%
\vfill
\noindent\Block{text}{caption}\hfill%
\Block{text}{caption}\hfill%
\Block{text}{caption}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Using some of the options for the geometry package, the text area layout can be modified at will.

Gonzalo Medina
  • 505,128
  • This looks rather nice. Can I space the sectors a bit, and change the width?, also, I'd like all six sectors to be horizontally and vertically centered, if that makes sense (top/bottom and left/right margins on the A4 page should be equal). – polemon Sep 25 '12 at 00:50
  • 1
    @polemon of course. Please see my updated answer and let me know if something like that is what you want. – Gonzalo Medina Sep 25 '12 at 00:59
  • You sir are splendid! – polemon Sep 25 '12 at 01:44
  • Hi Gonzalo, I like this answer indeed. Can one add some features of tcolorbox to this answer of you? For instance, having a header title, colorful borders, etc. And... my second questions is, can we omit that \fbox part? Just using minipage and tcolorbox? – enthu Jan 10 '20 at 20:06
6

Here's a solution using the pdfpages package. It consists of two steps: First you produce a document with a small paper size, and then you produce another document that combines these small pages onto one A4 landscape page.

This is your actual document, where you put all of your text etc. You might have to adapt the margins, page numbers, etc. to your needs.

% This file is called sixpages-doc.tex
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[paperwidth=9.9cm,paperheight=10.5cm]{geometry}
      % paperwidth is A4/3, paperheight is A4/2

\usepackage{lipsum}% just for filler text

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-6]
\end{document}

This is the document that puts the six pages on one page:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[landscape,a4paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{pdfpages}

\begin{document}
\includepdf[pages=-,nup=3x2]{sixpages-doc.pdf}
    % pages=- means all pages
    % nup "Puts multiple logical pages onto each sheet of paper. The syntax of
    %  this option is: nup=⟨xnup⟩x⟨ynup⟩." (from the manual)
    % If you want this layout:
    % 1 3 5
    % 2 4 6
    % use the option "column".
\end{document}

This is the output of the second document:

output

doncherry
  • 54,637
  • Not really what I was looking for, but I can see this working in a different manner: Could this work with the beamer class? And can I add text above/below the six blocks? – polemon Sep 25 '12 at 00:51
  • I don't usually use beamer, but you could just try turning the second document into a beamer document. Adding text within the second document would -- if possible at all -- become to complicated imho. What you could to, however, is e.g. adding a footer (with fancyhdr) to each of the small pages in the first document. – doncherry Sep 25 '12 at 01:06
4

I know that you want to use minipages. But here is a version using \parbox. You can't have certain things like footnotes here. This answer is given just to complete the list.

We ride on Gonzalo's code (thanks @Gonzalo) and modify a bit:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[landscape]{geometry}

\newcommand\Block[2]{%
\setlength\fboxsep{0pt}\setlength\fboxrule{0.1pt}% delete
\fbox{% delete
\parbox[c][.5\textheight][t]{0.3\textwidth}
{#1\par #2}
%
  }% delete
}

\begin{document}
\noindent
\Block{text}{caption}\hfill
\Block{text}{caption}\hfill
\Block{text}{caption}%
\vfill\noindent
\Block{text}{caption}\hfill
\Block{text}{caption}\hfill
\Block{text}{caption}
\end{document}

enter image description here