[Tex/LaTex] Widening marginparwidth for verbose todo notes

marginstodonotes

I used the following in a corporate template in order to get wider margins for todo notes:

\usepackage{showframe}
\usepackage[marginparwidth=85pt]{geometry}

This made the entire layout shift around, not just the marginparwidth. According to this ShareLaTeX page, marginparwidth is a dimension on its own.

To get away from the corporate template (who knows what else is going on in there), I resorted to Dr. Korlie's sample LaTeX file and stuck the 2 usepackage statements after his setlength commands. Same thing (not just marginparwidth changes).

Is there any way to change only marginparwidth?

Best Answer

I'm not very familiar with geometry package, so I read instruction in its manual :-). There I find nice explanation, how to set up geometry. As I mentioned in my comments, parameter marginparwidth is no independent nor locally defined size. If you select its width properly, I will not disturb any other settings of page geometry. In MWE below I consider the following rule:

outer=marginparsep + marginparwidth + distance between marginpar and page border

The following MWE, where I anticipate twoside option for your document, show an example for page setup. For more details, I strongly encourage you to read package documentation. It has only 18 pages with a lot of useful information.

    \documentclass[12pt,twoside]{article}
\usepackage[a4paper,
            inner=20mm,
            outer=50mm,% = marginparsep + marginparwidth 
                       %   + 5mm (between marginpar and page border)
            top=20mm,
            bottom=25mm,
            marginparsep=5mm,
            marginparwidth=40mm,
            showframe% for show your page design, normaly not used
            ]{geometry}

    \begin{document}
    \thispagestyle{empty}
test
\marginpar{margin notes (test)}
    \end{document}

It gives the following layout of page:

enter image description here

For any further help, you need to give more information, what is your problem. Ma answer and given MWE is based on my guessing.

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