[Tex/LaTex] multicolumn with columns spanning several pages

multicol

I would like to have an abstract and the translation of that abstract at the beginning of my document, in such a way, that I have two columns, e.g. the left one with the translation (let's say german) and the second column with the original abstract. If the text is exceeding the length of the left column, then the multicol environment will continue in the second/right column. What if I want to have the translation in the left column, spanning over several pages if necessary, and the original text in the second column, also spanning over several pages. I've also tried the longtable environment, but this results in strange line and paragraph spacings, and it does not look real good.

Please, any held is appreciated!
Regards, George

Here some minimal example…

\documentclass[a4paper, 11pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{lipsum,multicol}
\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\section*{Kurzdarstellung}
Hier der deutsche Text. \lipsum
\columnbreak
\section*{Abstract}
Here the english text. \lipsum
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

Best Answer

Use the paracol package instead of multicol.

The environment corresponding to multicols is paracol and the command corresponding to \columnbreak is \switchcolumn, but the result is:

enter image description here

Complete MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper, 11pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{lipsum} %just for the example
\usepackage[latin]{babel} %just for the example

\usepackage{paracol}

\begin{document}
\begin{paracol}{2}
\section*{Kurzdarstellung}
Hier der deutsche Text. \lipsum
\switchcolumn
\section*{Abstract}
Here the english text. \lipsum
\end{paracol}
\end{document}

Another option is to use the parcolumns package.

This is an example which gives, more or less, the same result as the above one.

\documentclass[a4paper, 11pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{lipsum} %just for the example
\usepackage[latin]{babel} %just for the example

\usepackage{parcolumns}

\begin{document}
\begin{parcolumns}{2}
\colchunk[1]{%
\section*{Kurzdarstellung}
Hier der deutsche Text. \lipsum
}
\colchunk[2]{%
\section*{Abstract}
Here the english text. \lipsum
}
\end{parcolumns}
\end{document}
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