[texhax] Address Book

[Perry Smith]

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