[Tex/LaTex] Splitting content of itemize items into two columns

itemizetabularx

How can I emulate e.g. a manually set OpenOffice tabulator in my enumeration?

  • right side has to begin at a uniform point
  • some space has to be between the rightmost point of left side and leftmost point of right side
  • multi-line items have to stay vertically aligned (by first line) between the columns
  • itemize left indentation and vertical spacing
  • (bonus) shall work across section tags

Working for single-line items:

\begin{minipage}{0.28\textwidth}
  \begin{itemize}
    \item Item 1 left side
    \item Item 2 left side
  \end{itemize}
\end{minipage}
\hfill
\begin{minipage}{0.7\textwidth}
  \begin{itemize}
    \item Item 1 right side
    \item Item 2 right side
  \end{itemize}
\end{minipage}

This breaks down really quickly with multi-line items. The vertical alignment will be more and more off as the number of in-item linebreaks grows.

Also, requires a lot of bad code: same-line text is spread across two blocks, itemize structure has to be duplicated, etc.

Not so working attempt inspired by [1]:

\begin{tabular}{ll}
  Item 1 left side & Item 1 right side \\
  Item 2 left side & Item 2 right side \\
\end{tabular}

Vertical spacing is (obviously) normal line spacing instead of proper itemize spacing here. Bullet points, if desired, have to be improvised as shown in [1].

Not so working attempt inspired by [2][3]:

\begin{tabulary}{\textwidth}{PP}
  \begin{itemize}
    \item[] Item 1 left side & Item 1 right side \\
    \item[] Item 2 left side & Item 2 right side \\
  \end{itemize}
\end{tabulary}

Throws a bunch of Package array Errors and Something's wrong errors.

Related stuff that probably will not work:

  • [4] – Same issues as my first example (if admittedly with less code overall).

Also, I am fairly sure that I did not tag this question correctly. Please suggest more fitting tags.

Best Answer

Using package listliketab as per suggestion of user @Dan :

\usepackage{listliketab}

\storestyleof{itemize}
\begin{document}
  \begin{listliketab}
  \begin{tabular}{lp{11cm}}
    \textbullet~ Item 1 left side & Item 1 right side \\
    \textbullet~ Item 2 left side & Item 2 right side\newline with manual line break \\
  \end{tabular}
  \end{listliketab}
\end{document}

Flaws:

  1. While listliketab claims to emulate the list style as specified by storestyleof, I have not found a way to emulate enumerators (e.g. text bullets) automatically. They have to be added manually using e.g. \textbullet~. If lines with and without shall be mixed, they need to be placed into an extra column to preserve alignment.
  2. Line breaks are only supported in columns of type p, which requires input of a manual width.

To overcome point 2 I tried to use package tabulary instead of tabular, but I could not get it to work with listliketab: All columns are squashed to a tiny space on the left side of the page; it looks normal as soon as enclosing listliketab-tags are removed.

For completeness the defective example using tabulary:

\usepackage{listliketab}
\usepackage{tabulary}

\storestyleof{itemize}
\begin{document}
  \begin{listliketab}
  \begin{tabulary}{\textwidth}{LL}
    \textbullet~ Item 1 left side & Item 1 right side \\
    \textbullet~ Item 2 left side & Item 2 right side\newline with manual line break \\
  \end{tabulary}
  \end{listliketab}
\end{document}
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