[texhax] Address Book

Lars Madsen daleif at imf.au.dk
Sat Feb 7 09:18:00 CET 2009


Perry Smith wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I need to produce what is essentially an address book.  At least one  
> section of the book, (the section I'm worried about) is a sequence of  
> what I'll call "stanzas".  The first line is the person's name.  Then  
> company.  Then address.  Then other items like web address, email,  
> etc.  The end customer wants two column output and wants a stanza to  
> not ever be split.  Then, whatever stanzas fit in a particular column  
> will be equally spaced out.
> 
> I know TeX can do this fairly easily.  I've used TeX in the distant  
> past.  Both Plain TeX and LaTeX.  The page also has some decorations  
> like a line down the middle to divide the two columns and a header and  
> page number in the footer.  Two sided output where the header flips on  
> even and odd pages.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1) Is there a pre-written set of macros that would give me a leg up on  
> this?
> 
> 2) I've used LaTeX and Plan TeX.  The default output of LaTeX never  
> pleased me.  And, for that matter, Computer Modern Roman font never  
> lite my fire either.  At the time (and environment) I used TeX, I  
> could not switch fonts, etc.  (This was back in 1984-88 on a Unix  
> machine.)  I'm using a Mac now with the latest Tug distribution.  Is  
> changing fonts going to be a problem?
> 
> 3) The classic question: would you recommend LaTeX or Plain TeX for  
> this?  I'm leaning towards Plain TeX but its been a long time and I'm  
> sure things have changed.  The other sections of the book are very  
> trivial to format.
> 
> Thank you for your help and advice,
> Perry
> 
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I don't see any problems about using LaTeX for this, I would using 
something like multicol(s) plus a minipage around each stanza.

regarding fonts, see http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/ for other samples


-- 

/daleif


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