UK TeX FAQ -- question label onecolabs

### 1-column abstract in 2-column document

One often requires that the abstract of a paper should appear across the entire page, even in a two-column paper. The required trick is:

>     \documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
>     ...
>     \begin{document}
>     ... % \author, etc
>     \twocolumn[
>       \begin{@twocolumnfalse}
>         \maketitle
>         \begin{abstract}
>           ...
>         \end{abstract}
>       \end{@twocolumnfalse}
>       ]

Unfortunately, with the above `\``thanks` won’t work in the `\``author` list. If you need such specially-numbered footnotes, you can make them like this:

>     \title{Demonstration}
>     \author{Me, You\thanks{}}
>     \twocolumn[
>       ... as above ...
>     ]
>     {
>       \renewcommand{\thefootnote}%
>         {\fnsymbol{footnote}}
>       \footnotetext[1]{Thanks for nothing}
>     }

and so on.

As an alternative, among other facilities the abstract package provides a `\``saythanks` command and a `onecolabstract` environment which remove the need to fiddle with the `\``thanks` and footnoting. They can be used like this:

>     \twocolumn[
>       \maketitle             % full width title
>       \begin{onecolabstract} % ditto abstract
>         ... text
>       \end{onecolabstract}
>     ]
>     \saythanks            % typeset any \thanks

The memoir class offers all the facilities of abstract.

`abstract.sty`
  macros/latex/contrib/abstract (or browse the directory); catalogue entry
`memoir.cls`
  macros/latex/contrib/memoir (or browse the directory); catalogue entry

This question on the Web: http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=onecolabs