[Tex/LaTex] How to use \marginpar with narrow margins

fullpagemarginpar

The \marginpar command is useful to create marginal notes in a document. In particular, it is used by the \todo command from the todonotes package. However, when the margins are narrower than usual, such as when using the fullpage package to save paper, the marginal note doesn't fit and gets chopped off the side of the page. How can we fix \marginpar so that it places the text inside the available margins?

In the following example, the word "elaborate" is cut off the side of the page:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fullpage}
\begin{document}
There is a lot to say here.
\marginpar{Possibly elaborate here.}
\end{document}

Best Answer

The width of a marginpar is \marginparwidth separated from the text block by \marginparsep.

Any code that is changing the margins should ensure that the sum of these fits in the margin space.

fullpage doesn't bother, presumably because the intention there is to make the text block full width so that essentially there are no margins wide enough for text.

Given that, there is a reasonable assumption that there are no marginal notes.

However you can use

\setlength\marginparwidth{10pt}

or whatever width you need if you want to squeeze something in

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