Page Layout ⇒ Minipages filled from the inside out?

[rausted]

Hello there, I just registered in the forum. I am creating my Curriculum Vitae for my University application with LaTeX, and I have a question. Why are minipages filled from the inside out, and not linearily, like all LaTeX pages? I am trying to make a list of extracurricular activities and stuff(flushleft) in one minipage on the left of the main page, and then the dates(center) in another minipage on the right. But I can't get the dates opposite the activity's description. I tried solving this with a lot of \vspace* but I couldn't...

Any ideas would be really helpful.

I am compiling it with:

Code: Select all

latex cv.tex
dvipdf cv.dvi cv.pdf

Thanks,
Rausted

[localghost]

The TeX Catalogue lists some interesting entries for writing a CV [1]. You also can show your difficulties by means of a minimal working example (MWE).

[1] The TeX Catalogue Online, Topic Index - Writing Applications for a Job /CV


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[rausted]

Okay, here is a minimal NOT-working example. You can see the vertically unalligned dates. This is a result of minipage being filled inside out. ie: if you type in the minipage a single date, it is alligned in the middle of the page. Why doesn't it go first on the top of the page?

And, I have already seen the list of CV packages for LaTeX, but I am not really interested in re-writting my CV based on another package. I wrote most of it in simple LaTeX, only a few problems remain.

[localghost]

The way you want to do that can't work. You will always have difficulties in aligning the corresponding entries. Consider the following code as suggestion and basic structure.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,english]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[noheadfoot,margin=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage{array,tabularx}

\setlength{\parindent}{0em}
\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
  \section*{Education}
    \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{@{}p{5cm}XXc>{\raggedleft\arraybackslash}X@{}}
      \textbullet\ Senior High School & & & \textbullet & (2007--2008) \\
      \textbullet\ Junior High School & & & \textbullet & (2004--2007) \\
      \textbullet\ Primary School & & & \textbullet & (1998--2004)
    \end{tabularx}

  \section*{Standardized Test Scores}
    \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{@{}p{5cm}XXc>{\raggedleft\arraybackslash}X@{}}
      \textbullet\ \emph{PSAT} & & & \\
      \quad -- Critical Reading: 60 & Math: 66 & Writing: 56 & \textbullet & -- (December 2007) \\[1ex]
      \textbullet\ \emph{SAT Reasoning Test} & & & \\
      \quad -- Critical Reading: 540 & Math: 650 & Writing: 590 & \textbullet & -- (October 2008) \\[1ex]
      \textbullet\ \emph{SAT Subject Test} & & & \\
      \quad -- Math Level 1: 750 & & & \textbullet & -- (October 2008) \\
      \quad -- Math Level 2: 750 & & & \textbullet & -- (May 2009) \\
      \quad -- Physics: ??0 & & & \textbullet & -- (November 2009) \\[1ex]
      \textbullet\ \emph{TOEFL} & & & \\
      \quad -- TOEFL iBT: ??? & & & \textbullet & -- (October 2008)
    \end{tabularx}
\end{document}

The tables help to keep the entries together. Information about the used packages can be found on CTAN.

[rausted]

Ok, got it. Thanks a lot, I will do this for the rest of my CV as well.

[rausted]

Ok, just one problem. In your example, the dates are flushed right. I want them centered(still on the right side of the page though). How can I do that? I couldn't find anything about that on the tabularx doc on CTAN.

Thank you,
Lio

[localghost]

Replace the \raggedleft command with the \centering command in the declaration of the last column. Alternative you could simply use a c type column. But I think this may disturb the total appearance.