LaTeX

I'm avoiding the near-obligatory puns.

LaTeX is a document formatting language. Conceptually, it's kinda in the same ballpark as HTML; you have text with special bits of text mixed in that explain how to display it. LaTeX is geared for print media, though, so it's got a bunch of extra stuff thrown in. It's specifically designed for formatting books (or even more specifically, one book in particular). I'm just starting to play with it, but it's got features for managing footnotes, displaying mathematical formulas, etc.

I'm tinkering with it because I want to print something out on paper, and I care about how it's laid out. Also just because I want to learn it. I'm designing a sort of weekly reminder sheet. I want it to be two columns so I can fold it in half lengthwise. One column is tasks, the other is events. It'll look something like this:

Errands groceries deposit check Household laundry

Monday Tuesday 5:00pm happy hour Wednesday 7:00pm erlang meetup Thursday 7:30pm dinner w/ Will Friday Saturday 9:00am plant sale Sunday

The LaTeX code to do this is below. To create a PDF of it, run the pdflatex utility on it.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{multicol} % need this for manual column break
\usepackage[top=0.5in, bottom=0.5in, left=0.5in, right=0.5in]{geometry} % narrow margins
\usepackage{mdwlist} % for itemize*

\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{} % no bullet for top-level list items
\renewcommand{\labelitemii}{$\cdotp$} % bullet for next level of list items

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\begin{itemize*}

    \item Errands
    \begin{itemize*}
    \item groceries
    \item deposit check
    \end{itemize*}

    \item Household
    \begin{itemize*}
    \item laundry
    \end{itemize*}

% need \vfill at the bottom of each column; otherwise one will be stretched to be as long as the other.
\vfill
\columnbreak

    \item Monday

    \item Tuesday
    \begin{itemize*}
    \item 5:00pm happy hour
    \end{itemize*}

    \item Wednesday
    \begin{itemize*}
    \item 7:00pm erlang meetup
    \end{itemize*}

    \item Thursday
    \begin{itemize*}
    \item 7:30pm dinner w/ Will
    \end{itemize*}

    \item Friday

    \item Saturday
    \begin{itemize*}
    \item 9:00am plant sale
    \end{itemize*}

    \item Sunday

\end{itemize*}
\vfill
\end{multicols}
\end{document}