[Tex/LaTex] Line spacing in parcolumns environment

line-spacingparcolumns

Is it possible to change the line spacing within a colchunk in a parcolumns environment? I tried the following without success:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{parcolumns}       
\begin{document}

\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.5}\normalsize

\begin{parcolumns}[nofirstindent]{2}
\colchunk[1]{bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla}
\colchunk[2]{\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.1}\footnotesize This works not. This works not. This works not. This works not. This works not. This works not. This works not. This works not. This works not. This works not. \par}
\colplacechunks
\end{parcolumns}

{\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.1}\footnotesize This works fine. This works fine. This works fine. This works fine. This works fine. This works fine. This works fine. This works fine. This works fine. This works fine. \par}

\end{document}

Best Answer

What the package is doing is splitting each column up line by line and then re-assembling the page a line at a time constructing each line out of the lines from the columns, so the final result is even line spacing and the line spacing in the original column settings is necessarily lost

If you don't do that then you have to work a lot harder if you want to allow page breaks at arbitrary points mid-paragraph as if the columns have different line spacing there may not be any feasible break points in general.

So while it is possible to devise a parallel markup system that allows different spacing, probably parcolumns should not be your starting point for that as you would have to change almost the entire package.

It seems that the OP wants columns of different sizes. It seems that the paracol package supports that so long as you don't try to be too tricky with floating environments (which would need to be restricted to columns of the same width)

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{paracol, blindtext, setspace}
\begin{document}

% EDIT: Space between columns:
\setlength{\columnsep}{24pt}
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.5}\normalsize

\begin{paracol}{2}
\showthe\columnwidth
\advance\columnwidth 5em \hsize\columnwidth
  \blindtext
\switchcolumn
\advance\columnwidth-10em \hsize\columnwidth
\begin{spacing}{1}
  \blindtext
\end{spacing}

\end{paracol}

\begin{paracol}{2}
\showthe\columnwidth
\advance\columnwidth 5em \hsize\columnwidth
  a a a a a a a\blindtext
\switchcolumn
\advance\columnwidth-10em \hsize\columnwidth
\begin{spacing}{1}
  b b b b b b b \blindtext
\end{spacing}

\end{paracol}
\end{document} 
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