Long table in four-column document

Question

I am working on a four-column document using the multicol package and want to insert a two-column table that spans upon multiple multicols* columns (and multiple pages), doing column and page breaks by itself. I did a mockup in Excel of how I'd like it to look like:

However, I couldn't achieve that with any tabular, longtable, supertabular or xtabular. I think an xtabular could work, but it does a page break every time it reaches the end of a column (see MWE), while I want it to automatically do a column break and fill the whole page before going to a new page.

MWE of what I achieved so far, using the xtab package:

\documentclass[12pt,twoside]{scrbook}
\usepackage{ucs}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{xtab}

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols*}{4} %Beginning of the four-column environment
    \begin{xtabular}{rl} %Beginning of the two-column xtabular
        1 & Montag \\
        2 & Dienstag \\
        3 & Mittwoch \\
        4 & Donnerstag \\
        5 & Freitag \\
        6 & Samstag \\
        7 & Sonntag \\
        8 & Montag \\
        9 & Dienstag \\
        10 & Mittwoch \\
        11 & Donnerstag \\
        12 & Freitag \\
        13 & Samstag \\
        14 & Sonntag \\
        15 & Montag \\
        16 & Dienstag \\
        17 & Mittwoch \\
        18 & Donnerstag \\
        19 & Freitag \\
        20 & Samstag \\
        21 & Sonntag \\
        22 & Montag \\
        23 & Dienstag \\
        24 & Mittwoch \\
        25 & Donnerstag \\
        26 & Freitag \\
        27 & Samstag \\
        28 & Sonntag \\
        29 & Montag \\
        30 & Dienstag \\
        31 & Mittwoch \\
        32 & Donnerstag \\
        33 & Freitag \\
        34 & Samstag \\
        35 & Sonntag \\
        36 & Montag \\
        37 & Dienstag \\
        38 & Mittwoch \\
        39 & Donnerstag \\
        40 & Freitag \\
        41 & Samstag \\
        42 & Sonntag \\
        43 & Montag \\
        44 & Dienstag \\
        45 & Mittwoch \\
        46 & Donnerstag \\
        47 & Freitag \\
        48 & Samstag \\
        49 & Sonntag \\
        50 & Montag \\
        51 & Dienstag \\
        52 & Mittwoch \\
    \end{xtabular}
\end{multicols*}

\end{document}

Compiled MWE:

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Answer 1

I would use a list here. I used itemize of course if your first column really is a counter in your real document it can be simplified more and use enumerate

I used multicolumn not multicolumn* as there was not enough text to fill 4 unbalanced columns in this example.

\documentclass[12pt,twoside]{scrbook}
% no \usepackage{ucs}
% no \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{multicol}
%\usepackage{xtab}

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{4} %Beginning of the four-column environment

\begin{itemize}
\item[1] Montag
\item[2] Dienstag
\item[3] Mittwoch
\item[4] Donnerstag
\item[5] Freitag
\item[6] Samstag
\item[7] Sonntag
\item[8] Montag
\item[9] Dienstag
\item[10] Mittwoch
\item[11] Donnerstag
\item[12] Freitag
\item[13] Samstag
\item[14] Sonntag
\item[15] Montag
\item[16] Dienstag
\item[17] Mittwoch
\item[18] Donnerstag
\item[19] Freitag
\item[20] Samstag
\item[21] Sonntag
\item[22] Montag
\item[23] Dienstag
\item[24] Mittwoch
\item[25] Donnerstag
\item[26] Freitag
\item[27] Samstag
\item[28] Sonntag
\item[29] Montag
\item[30] Dienstag
\item[31] Mittwoch
\item[32] Donnerstag
\item[33] Freitag
\item[34] Samstag
\item[35] Sonntag
\item[36] Montag
\item[37] Dienstag
\item[38] Mittwoch
\item[39] Donnerstag
\item[40] Freitag
\item[41] Samstag
\item[42] Sonntag
\item[43] Montag
\item[44] Dienstag
\item[45] Mittwoch
\item[46] Donnerstag
\item[47] Freitag
\item[48] Samstag
\item[49] Sonntag
\item[50] Montag
\item[51] Dienstag
\item[52] Mittwoch
\end{itemize}
\end{multicols}

\end{document}