Layout Skill

Trigger

Run /layout when:

• Images overflow columns or look too small
• Pages have awkward white space
• Text doesn't balance across columns
• Adding new images to multi-column sections
• User reports layout issues

Diagnosis Steps

1. Build and check page count

   bash
   1make worldbuilding
   2pdfinfo worldbuilding-bible/export/worldbuilding-bible-de.pdf | grep Pages

2. Render specific page for inspection

   bash
   1python3 scripts/layout-check.py --page N --no-build

3. Identify issue type

   • White space: Too little content for layout, or wrong column count
   • Overflow: Image too large for column
   • Cramped: Too much content, needs page break
   • Orphaned: Heading separated from content

Common Fixes

White Space Issues

• Too few columns: Change page-3 to page-2 or page-1
• Not enough content: Add descriptive text, don't leave images alone
• Wrong break: Remove new-page or add one earlier

Image Issues

• Overflow: Use width=\columnwidth (not fixed sizes)
• Too small: Check max height constraint in template
• Cropped badly: Adjust Clip* parameters or use different image

Column Balance

• Use columns-N (balanced) for text-heavy sections
• Use page-N (unbalanced) for image galleries
• Mix text and images to fill columns naturally

Template Reference

Figure Macros (template-latex.tex lines 418-490)

• \colfig{path}{caption}{list-caption} - single column
• \colpairfig{img1}{img2}{caption}{list-caption} - side-by-side
• \coldualfig{img1}{img2}{caption}{list-caption} - stacked
• \colgridfig{i1}{i2}{i3}{i4}{caption}{list-caption} - 2x2
• \coltriplefig{i1}{i2}{i3}{caption}{list-caption} - 3 stacked

Layout Environments

• columns-1 through columns-4 - balanced (multicols)
• page-1 through page-4 - unbalanced (multicols*)

Files to Modify

• worldbuilding-bible/de/*.md - Content and layout divs
• worldbuilding-bible/template-latex.tex - Macros and environments
• scripts/build-worldbuilding.py - Lua filter for div conversion

After Fixing

1. Rebuild: make worldbuilding
2. Check affected pages visually
3. Note fix in discoveries.md