I am using a 2-column layout.
I want the lines of text in column 1 and column 2 to be vertically aligned with each other—as though I were writing on paper with evenly-spaced lines that spanned the width of the page. (And if something takes more than a line height, it should snap down to the next one.)
In LibreOffice/OpenOffice this is the “register-true” paragraph attribute. Does typst offer anything similar?
This sounds like something the gridlock package could do. I haven’t used it myself yet, but go check it out and report back if it works!
That certainly looks as though it ought to do the trick - thanks! - but when I combine it with my existing document layout (a) it doesn’t actually align the columns even of body text and (b) having to set explicit size and margin means it’s not compatible with my article template that places items on the first page. (Also (b1) needing a paper parameter and not accepting width/height means it won’t work with my custom paper size, which is the subset of A4 and 8.5×11.) So this probably is a solution for people other than me, and I’ll see what I can do to get it working here too.
Now this is no guarantee, but I don’t think it uses the paper size for anything more than passing it on. So calling show gridlock and then #set page() with custom height should should work. See the gridlock manual and how you have to setup margins w.r.t your page size.
You also can call #show: gridlock after the first page, if it messes it up. The rest is mystery, since we don’t know what your template does or how it changes things.
You can also just merge the template with the package and see if you can make it work. Then you can modify it to fit your needs.