blog: Three Column LaTeX Layout

Backstory

Between a bit of math here and some history there, the most important thing you learn about in school is human nature.

And one thing I've learned about people, and teachers in particular, is that if what they say is too good to be true, it's not true. (Kind of the definition of the phrase, isn't it?)

So when my Physics instructor decided to let the class decide whether to make the tests open or closed-book, I wasn't the only one in there who was suspicious. But we chose the open-book test.

And when he said there would be only six questions, I felt the fear of Physics rise up in my heart. This could not end well...

And last night, when he offered to make the test multiple-choice, I was nothing short of terrified. "Don't do it! itsatrap!" I cried in vain to my classmates, but it was too late; they had assented.

So I'm counting down, with increasing dread and foreboding, the days until October 2nd.

The Actual LaTeX

The upside to all this is that it finally forced me to start writing LaTeX again.

What I wanted a a three-column equation sheet for Physics. Of course, for math equations nothing beats LaTeX. I'd used LaTeX for a few papers in English class before, but never really done anything too far outside the defaults; \usepackage{fullpage} is about as much customization as I'd ever needed.

So yesterday I set out to find a three-column, landscape equation sheet that I could use as a template. Hours later, I'd turned up nothing. So I buckled down, learned how to use the minipage environment, and wrote one of my own.

Here's the linky, and the source. It currently only has 4 chapters worth of outlined content for an 100-level Physics course, but really it's really the layout that I think would be useful for other people. I know that I'll be using this layout for any other equation sheets I need.

So enjoy.

Corrections or improvements to the layout (or heck, the content) would of course be appreciated. This is my first nontrivial LaTeX document, so I'm sure there's plenty that I messed up. "Be liberal in what you accept", "and even more so with me." ^{1 2}

Aside

I'm still trying to figure out how to do the footnotes well for people reading this through Google Reader.

I also added the jQuery UI to this; you should be able to drag the footnote divs around. Not that there's any real reason to, but hey, mindless fun is mindless fun.