Text Formatting ⇒ background color of lines

[buergi]

Hey,
i'm searching a way to do some advanced line coloring. Specific paragraphs should alternately be colored. I've drawn a rough layout sketch to clarify how it should look like:

book_layout_neut.png (108.45 KiB) Viewed 2574 times

For the orange flags in the header i used tikz and fancyhdr, which worked very well. But i've some problems with the line coloring. My first idea was something like:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[svgnames]{book}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage[dvips]{geometry}
\usepackage{vmargin}

\setpapersize{A5}
\pagecolor{Ivory}
\setmarginsrb{0cm}{1.5cm}{0cm}{1.5cm}{0.5cm}{0.2cm}{1cm}{1cm}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\pagestyle{plain}

\newcommand{\asays}[1]{\colorbox{Beige}{
    \parbox{\paperwidth}{
        \hangindent=1.5cm \hangafter=0 \parbox{\paperwidth-3cm}{A: #1}}
    }\\}
\newcommand{\bsays}[1]{\colorbox{Bisque}{
    \parbox{\paperwidth}{
        \hangindent=1.5cm \hangafter=0 \parbox{\paperwidth-3cm}{B: #1}}
    }\\}


\begin{document}
\asays {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt}
\bsays {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet}
\asays {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt}
\bsays {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet}
\end{document}

But unfortunately this causes some problems:
1. Of course the text cannot flow on the text page but only the whole \parbox. This leads to a huge waste of space at the bottom of a page. Paragraphs longer than a page are even cut.
2. The text won't low around graphics (like with wrapfig etc.)

Hopefully someone has an idea how to get the lines colored without those problematic parboxes. If necessary I'd even try to dive a little into TeX but i've no idea where to start.
Thanks a lot in advance,
buergi


Edit by localghost: Preferably no external links (see Board Rules). Attachments go onto the forum server where possible.

[buergi]

I managed to solve problem 1 by using the framed package

Code: Select all

\documentclass[svgnames]{book}
\usepackage[dvips]{geometry}
\usepackage{framed}
\usepackage{vmargin}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{calc}

\setpapersize{A5}
\pagecolor{Ivory}
\setmarginsrb{1.5cm}{1.5cm}{1.5cm}{1.5cm}{0.5cm}{0.2cm}{1cm}{1cm}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\pagestyle{plain}

\newcommand{\widebox}[2]{\colorbox{#1}{\makebox[\paperwidth]{#2}}}

\newenvironment{shadeda}{%
\def\FrameCommand{\fboxsep=1ex \widebox{Wheat}}%
                  \MakeFramed {\FrameRestore}}%
                 {\endMakeFramed}
\newenvironment{shadedb}{%
\def\FrameCommand{\fboxsep=1ex \widebox{Cornsilk}}%
                  \MakeFramed {\FrameRestore}}%
                 {\endMakeFramed}
\newcommand{\asays} [1]{\begin{shadeda}A: #1\end{shadeda}\vspace{-20pt}}
\newcommand{\bsays} [1]{\begin{shadedb}B: #1\end{shadedb}\vspace{-20pt}}

\begin{document}
\asays {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt}
\bsays {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet}
\asays {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt}
\bsays {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet}
\end{document}

Problem 1 solved. One problem remaining + one new problem:
2. The text doesn't flow around graphics. wrapfig even breaks the whole text
3. How to get rid of the vertical space between the boxes. The vspace sledgehammer method isn't very satisfying. Especially because the spaces are not equal.

buergi