[Tex/LaTex] Combining tufte handout with classicthesis article

classicthesisdocument-classestufte

I am a sucker for the large margins in Tufte-inspired classes, and in classicthesis. However, I want to write an article with a Tufte layout (example), but with the classicthesis title/author/abstract/contents/(general front matter) structure. To me, the tufte-handout class is too 'handouty', and the tufte-book is too 'booky'. I want a genuinely 'articley' class.

For an example of the classicthesis part (in fact the article in question), see this article written by me. (Note to mathematicians: this is not the most up-to-date version! The content has been much improved since).

Perhaps the way to go about this is to hack classicthesis, so that the margins are as per tuftr-handout (e.g. as in this question). Or perhaps hack tufte-handout so that the front matter is as per classicthesis (but left-aligned the tuft-handout front matter). However, I have no experience in this matter! Which would be better? Or is there another way?

Best Answer

I also needed something with the same functionality as the tufte-latex class, but the option to configure the chapter and caption headings, the page layout and such differently. So I started writing the package sidenotes. It is in the middle of everything, there are no example files, yet, but the documentation is at least there.

It provides the macros/ environments \sidenote, \sidecite, \sidecaption, sidefigure and sidetable and a few helper macros. Please note, \sidecite only works with biblatex. Also, if you are used to tufte-latex, please note the slightly different syntax. I made the macros as similar to the usual LaTeX ones as possible. The manual offset is a postfix, e.g. \sidenote[2]{foo}[10pt] corresponds to \footnote[2]{foo} and there is \sidenotemark as well as \sidenotetext.

So far, it handles the semiautomatic mode (offset manually applied) very well and it works great with marginfix and a few marginals. However, it does not work well with full margins, marginfix and \sidecaption.

It would work great with \blockmargin back in marginfix, but I have to rephrase my own question first, once I find time for that.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Beamer slides and tufte-handout

The problem appears to be related to the \title command. When I compile a document using \title then it hangs, and when I compile it without then it works just fine. There's a bit of a tangled web of definitions and redefinitions going on that is a bit hard to track. One method that worked for me was to copy out the (re)definition of \title from tufte-common.def and stick it in after the call to beamerarticle. Thus my main file looks like this:

\documentclass{tufte-handout}
\usepackage{beamerarticle}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\title}[2][]{%
  \gdef\@title{#2}%
  \begingroup%
    % TODO store contents of \thanks command
    \renewcommand{\thanks}[1]{}% swallow \thanks contents
    \protected@xdef\thanklesstitle{#2}%
  \endgroup%
  \ifthenelse{\isempty{#1}}%
    {\renewcommand{\plaintitle}{\thanklesstitle}}% use thankless title
    {\renewcommand{\plaintitle}{#1}}% use provided plain-text title
  \@ifpackageloaded{hyperref}{\hypersetup{pdftitle={\plaintitle}}}{}% set the PDF metadata title
}
\makeatother

\input{tufteMain}

Of course, that means that the title doesn't get "beamerified", but as this is only for the article version, that doesn't matter.

I tried storing the old definition of \title before calling beamerarticle and resetting it afterwards, but that didn't work:

\documentclass{tufte-handout}
\let\tufteTitle=\title
\usepackage{beamerarticle}
\let\title=\tufteTitle

\input{tufteMain}

still hung.

In general, TeX hangs like that when it enters an infinite loop, so my guess is that somehow the definition and redefinition of \title mean that it ends up calling itself again and again. Also, when TeX enters an infinite loop then the logfile contains the last thing that it did okay, so removing stuff that has appeared in the logfile isn't an optimal strategy (you may happen on whatever it was that created the loop, but there's no guarantee).

[Tex/LaTex] ClassicThesis text area dimensions for letter size paper

Try these sizes,

\RequirePackage[letterpaper, top=1in, bottom=1.5in, 
  left=1.5in, right=1.5in,showframe=false]{geometry}

I would try and keep the ratio of the text area to the paper area to around 0.50.

enter image description here

Here, is a minimal that shows the calculation of this ratio and sets the dimensions.

\documentclass[letterpaper]{scrreprt}
\usepackage{lipsum,fp}
\RequirePackage[letterpaper, top=1in, bottom=1.5in, 
  left=1.5in, right=1.5in,showframe=false]{geometry}
\makeatletter
\def\Htext{\strip@pt\textheight}
\def\Wtext{\strip@pt\textwidth}
\def\Hpaperheight{\strip@pt\paperheight}
\def\Wpaperwidth{\strip@pt\paperwidth}
\FPdiv\aspectpaper{\Hpaperheight}{\Wpaperwidth}
\FPdiv\aspect{\Htext}{\Wtext}
\FPmul\paperarea{\Hpaperheight}{\Wpaperwidth}
\FPmul\textarea{\Htext}{\Wtext}
\FPdiv\ratio{\textarea}{\paperarea}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\chapter{INTRODUCTION}
\lipsum\lipsum
\aspect\par
\aspectpaper\par
\ratio
\end{document}

You can vary the top and bottom slightly to your liking, if you wish. Best is to try printing a few pages of real text sample, before you firm your dimensions to see if it is to your liking.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Beamer slides and tufte-handout

[Tex/LaTex] ClassicThesis text area dimensions for letter size paper

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