two column format - Balancing the last page

[Sivakumar Subramanian]

Hello all,

I am writing a two column paper. I would like to have the last page
balanced (both the columns to have the same length). Is there any
package which would help me balance the last page in a two column
paper? I tried in CTAN.

Appreciate your help.

Thanks a lot.
Siva

[Robin Fairbairns]

Sivakumar Subramanian <si...@lehigh.edu> wrote:
>I am writing a two column paper. I would like to have the last page
>balanced (both the columns to have the same length). Is there any
>package which would help me balance the last page in a two column
>paper? I tried in CTAN.

ctan does in fact have some solutions (though i'm personally not
terribly enamoured of them). try

macros/latex/contrib/supported/sttools/flushend.sty, or
macros/latex/contrib/other/preprint/balance (comes as .dtx + .ins)

i don't like these because they patch the output routine, which is a
dodgy process at best. my baltools.sty (balancing tools) package is
available by grabbing ftp://ftp.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rf/nrc/baltools.tgz
and processing baltools.ins -- it doesn't patch the output routine.
the package is supposed to do the balancing naturally at end document,
but it's pretty much completely untested (it's a bunch of stuff i've
pulled out of my classes for the nrc, where it works).

once i've tested it i'll put it on ctan and put my faq on this topic
into http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge

[Peter Flynn]

Sivakumar Subramanian wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I am writing a two column paper. I would like to have the last page
> balanced (both the columns to have the same length). Is there any
> package which would help me balance the last page in a two column
> paper? I tried in CTAN.

The multicol package does this by default.

///Peter