Argthtjtr

it there a way to have a variable that returns in which column of my multicols environment am I in?
Thanks!

Out of the box multicol supports finding out if you are at a certain point in the first, the last or one of the middle columns (assuming you have more than 2 columns). That is done using docolaction which is described in the documentation (and needs to be explicitly enabled via an option). If you need more detail then perhaps the link suggested above provides that, but by default multicol distinguishes ones the 3 cases.

The following yields the current column unexpandably. It needs at least 2 runs of LaTeX.

documentclass{article}



usepackage[left=2mm,right=2mm]{geometry}

usepackage[colaction]{multicol}

usepackage{etoolbox}



makeatletter

newcounter{nexprex@col@count}

newcounter{nexprex@current@column@call}

defnexprex@patch@last

  {%

    stepcounter{nexprex@col@count}%

    protected@write@auxout{}

      {%

        stringdefstringnexprex@cur@col{arabic{nexprex@col@count}}%

      }%

  }

defnexprex@patch@else

  {%

    ifmc@firstcol

      setcounter{nexprex@col@count}{0}%

    fi

    nexprex@patch@last

  }

defnexprex@patch@error

  {%

    GenericError{}

      {Patching of stringmc@col@status@writespace failed}

      {%

        Make sure `colaction` was set as an option for `multicol`.%

        MessageBreak

        Else you're screwed, don't use the code provided here.MessageBreak%

      }

      {No further help available.}%

  }

pretocmdmc@lastcol@status@write{nexprex@patch@last}{}{nexprex@patch@error}

pretocmdmc@col@status@write{nexprex@patch@else}{}{nexprex@patch@error}

newcommandcurrentcolumn

  {%

    stepcounter{nexprex@current@column@call}%

    protected@write@auxout{}

      {%

        stringexpandafter

        stringglobal

        stringexpandafter

        stringlet

          stringcsnamespace

            nexprex@current@column@arabic{nexprex@current@column@call}%

          stringendcsname

          stringnexprex@cur@col

      }%

    ifcsname

      nexprex@current@column@arabic{nexprex@current@column@call}endcsname

      csname

        nexprex@current@column@arabic{nexprex@current@column@call}endcsname

    fi

  }

makeatother





begin{document}

begin{multicols}{5}

  noindent

  This is: currentcolumn

  columnbreak\

  This is: currentcolumn

  columnbreak\

  This is: currentcolumn

  columnbreak\

  This is: currentcolumn

  columnbreak\

  This is: currentcolumn

end{multicols}

end{document}