Understanding \enlargethispage in order to get rid of widow/orphan problems.

[Michael Lake]

Hi all

I need to get rid of a widow. On the first page, at the end of the first column I
have just one line of a paragraph which continues at the top of the second column. I
would like to increase the text block height just for this page so that a few more
lines are fitted on. I'm using \enlargethispage to do this and having problems
understanding the behaviour of the command.

A minimal example is here:
http://www.speleonics.com.au/mikes/temp/test.tex
http://www.speleonics.com.au/mikes/temp/test.pdf
You will see in the PDF that "Therefore the next stage of the research pro-" is on a
line by itself.

The general outline of the document structure is this:

--------------------
A title

\begin{multicols}{2}
about two pages of text in several paragraphs
\end{multicols}
--------------------

I have been inserting \enlargethispage commands at several places in the document;
- I can get all the text onto one page if I insert \enlargethispage*{1000pt} at TWO
places in the document; before the title & after the start of \begin{multicols}.
If I place it at only one of these places nothing happens.
- The command does nothing if I ask for 6mm of space instead of 1000pt.
- If I manually set a pagebreak in the doc the effect of adding 1000pts dissappears.
- I have also tried ending the multicols and starting multicols partway through
the doc manually but the first page still has that annoying single line.
- If I enlarge the page to 1000pt and add a \columnbreak well after that lone line
the doc still wants to break the col at that same lone line.

I have tried many other combinations but it seems like a have a recalcitrant
document. Thus I need some help in understanding what latex is trying to do so I can
apply the commands correctly.

--
Michael Lake
[pls ignore idiot lawyer's msg below]

[Suresh]

Michael Lake wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I need to get rid of a widow. On the first page, at the end of the first column I
> have just one line of a paragraph which continues at the top of the second column. I
> would like to increase the text block height just for this page so that a few more
> lines are fitted on. I'm using \enlargethispage to do this and having problems
> understanding the behaviour of the command.

Hello friend,
\enlargethispage{N\baselineskip} % where N = 1, 2, 3, ..... should
work. It bails me out all the time. If that does not work, try

\usepackage{anysize} % \marginsize{lef}{rig}{top}{bot} respectively
and if that fails
\usepackage{chngpage} % more tricky to use, but is also effective.

Hope that helps.

Regards,
Suresh.

[Michael Lake]

Suresh wrote:

> Michael Lake wrote:
>>I need to get rid of a widow. On the first page, at the end of the first column I
>>have just one line of a paragraph which continues at the top of the second column. I
>>would like to increase the text block height just for this page so that a few more
>>lines are fitted on. I'm using \enlargethispage to do this and having problems
>>understanding the behaviour of the command.
>
>
> Hello friend,
> \enlargethispage{N\baselineskip} % where N = 1, 2, 3, ..... should
> work. It bails me out all the time. If that does not work, try

I also use it but for my particular example it doesn't for some reason.

> \usepackage{anysize} % \marginsize{lef}{rig}{top}{bot} respectively
> and if that fails
> \usepackage{chngpage} % more tricky to use, but is also effective.

Thanks. I used changepage from the chngpage package and it does indeed increase the
page height as required. I also looked at the style sheet and see that it just uses
\addtolength{\textheight}{#1} so I tried just using
\addtolength{\textheight}{3\baselineskip} where I needed it and that works fine.
Yet \enlargethispage*{3\baselineskip} didn't so I'm not sure why.

> Hope that helps.
Yes it has Suresh, I now have the widows and orphans removed.

Thanks
--
Michael Lake