[Tex/LaTex] Minipage spanning across pages

minipage

I'm looking for a way to span minipages across pages in LaTeX.

I have a collection of recipes (presented through the recipe environment provided by the cuisine package) that varies in length, from something like 10 lines to more than can fit on a page. I want to fit as many as possible on one page and span the text across pages only if necessary.
Until now I used the minipage environment that is sufficient if the content is not longer than a page.

Is there a way to get a "2 pages"-minipage or something similar ?

EDIT:

I have something like : texts A, B, C and D. I don't want them to span across pages if not necessary.

  • AAAABB (newpage) BBCCDD is not acceptable
  • AAAA (newpage) BBBB (newpage) CCDD is the desirable output

EDIT:

My content is a collection of recipes from the cuisine package.

Best Answer

Your specification is too vague. You want to fit as many onto one page as possible, but some are larger than a single page so they should be split. What's the criterion for allowing a split? I'd do something like this:

  1. Typeset the recipe in a box and measure it.

  2. If it's shorter than some constant length (say 40% the height of the page), then put it in a minipage on the page.

  3. If it's longer, insert it onto the page without using minipage (hence allowing it to split)

Here's code to do something like this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum,environ}
\newsavebox\recipebox
\newlength\recipebreaklength
\setlength\recipebreaklength{0.4\textheight}
\newcommand\typesetrecipe[1]{%
  \par\noindent\rule{\linewidth}{1ex}\par
  \BODY
  \par\noindent\rule{\linewidth}{1ex}\par
}
\NewEnviron{recipe}{%
  \savebox{\recipebox}{\parbox{\linewidth}{%
    \typesetrecipe{\BODY}%
  }}%
  \ifdim
      \dimexpr\ht\recipebox+\dp\recipebox\relax 
      > \recipebreaklength
    \typesetrecipe{\BODY}%
  \else
    \par\noindent\usebox\recipebox
  \fi
  \bigskip
}
\begin{document}
\raggedbottom
\begin{recipe}\lipsum[2]\end{recipe}
\begin{recipe}\lipsum[3]\end{recipe}
\begin{recipe}\lipsum[4]\end{recipe}
\begin{recipe}\lipsum[5]\end{recipe}
\begin{recipe}\lipsum[6]\end{recipe}
\begin{recipe}\lipsum[7-10]\end{recipe}
\end{document}
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