[texhax] irregular boundaries

[Robin Fairbairns]

> Is there a package that can give me a non-straight column edge?  I
> would like something that will make my text follow the contour of an
> illustration.

parshape? i've never used it, but all the tricksy demos i've seen have
looked impressive.  none of them have been as simple as this
application.

mind you, i did a flier for tug 2000 by simply messing around with
ragged right text to make it fit.  (miracle it did, of course...)

> I'm also interested in finding a package to provide
> centered insets (like for a pull quote) in twocolumn LaTeX printing.
> The wrapfig package can sort of do this second in one column or the
> other, but I'd like it centered.  The two seem like related problems.
> 
> I've hunted through CTAN, but didn't recognize or see anything that
> would do what I have in mind.  (Though perhaps I just don't know what
> to call this.)  I wrote something that mostly works for simple LaTeX
> documents, but does the general-purpose solution already exist?

look at macros/latex/contrib/supported/wrapfig/multiple-span.txt on
ctan (make sure you're using a fixed-pitch font to read the ascii
diagrams).

this is a scheme for (tediously) doing the job by hand, with much
scratching around and re-running latex.

the problem is that there's nothing much to hang an automated solution
on, so manually is probably the only real way.