[OS X TeX] Multicol help

[Christopher Allen]

> Yes, that's right! Shouldn't that be the correct behaviour?

Rather, I want the behavior of multicol, specifically including the 
wrapping, but without the [formatting error?] contained within it. If 
multicol fills a column completely (perhaps that means slightly past 
where it should), the following column does not begin at the top of the 
page, but instead gets pushed downward. This is not the result of 
\\[#pt] or similar commands, though the result appears just like what 
happens when you reach the end of a page and have a \\[#pt] command, 
which pushes text on the next page down from the top of the page.

The other problem, which from what I said does sound more similar to 
what you offered, isn't solved by avoiding wrapping. In one case I have 
70 items of the same size placed in 3 columns. In the second case this 
is reduced to 50 items. With 70 items they are separated into columns 
of 24, 24, and 22; with 50 items they are separated into columns of 17, 
17, and 16. I would like the 22 (or 16) items in the third column to 
line up with the first 22 (or 16) items in the other two columns. 
Originally extra spacing was placed between the items of the third 
column. Setting finalcolumnbadness to -1 made this work with 70 items: 
there third column ends with the 22nd item lined up with the 22nd items 
from the other two columns. However, this did nothing for the 50 item 
group. It seems like it should have worked, based on both the 
documentation and the success with the 70 item group, but it does not.

For now I've solved the first problem by placing 
itthenelse{70items}{}{\columbreak} commands (the 70 and 50 items 
mentioned in the second part correspond to a matching group in the 
first part) through the document so they won't mess up the spacing when 
doing the 70 item one. I currently have no solution for the second 
problem.

> Have you searched at http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html? 
> Sometimes there are quite helpful hints ...

Maybe I've just used the wrong search strings; I didn't come up with 
anything that way. I also looked through the multicol help file, which 
is where I found some of the solutions I've been using.

Thanks,
Chris

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