I'm trying to write a user guide in LaTeX, and I want to layout my page in a way that I can put in a left margin for comments / notes on the corresponding lines of text in the main portion of the page (eg. a pcture of an exclamation mark and some words of caution to the reader about something said in the content on the right).
Furthermore it would be nice if I could somehow get a thin line separating the margin and the main body of text.
I've tried playing around with minipage, but I don't know how to specify the placement of the columns: I can't make the "margin" column align to the left side of the page, minipage always splits the page in half.
EG:
| main content of the page
| ctd.....................
! Warning | ctd.....................
| ctd.....................
| ctd.....................
? Note | ctd.....................
| ctd.....................
Best Answer
One possible solution would be to use the space reserved for marginal notes to place the comments/notes and to use the background package to place the vertical rule separating the text from the notes/comments; a little example (feel free to adapt and improve my example to suit your needs):
A portion of the resulting document: