Text Formatting ⇒ Vertical alignment in multicols environment

[nikolaik]

Hi all

in this example:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\pagestyle{empty}

\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage[neverdecrease]{paralist}

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{3}
\begin{enumerate}[a)]
\item%
\setlength{\unitlength}{1cm}
\begin{picture}(0,0) 
\linethickness{1pt} 
\put(-1,0){\line(1,0){16}} 
\end{picture}  
$\displaystyle z (x; y) = x - y $ 
\item% 
$\displaystyle z (x; y) = \frac{x}{y}$
\item%
$\displaystyle z (x; y) = x + y$  
\end{enumerate}
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

the item b) is lower than the items a) and c).
The picture (line) is added to show these differences.
How can this be corrected?

Thanks in advance

Nikolai

[localghost]

I can comprehend the problem with your MWE. Seems to be caused by the different height of the second item so the multicol package runs into trouble. I suggest to use the inparaenum environment from the paralist package.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[neverdecrease]{paralist}

\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
  \begin{inparaenum}[a)]
    \item $\displaystyle z(x;y)=x-y$\qquad
    \item $\displaystyle z(x;y)=\frac{x}{y}$\qquad
    \item $\displaystyle z(x;y)=x+y$
  \end{inparaenum}
\end{document}

As you can see you have to add some horizontal space but finally you got a proper vertical alignment. Another idea could be to "hide" the height of the fraction to make the compiler neglect it.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage[neverdecrease]{paralist}

\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
  \begin{multicols}{3}
    \begin{enumerate}[a)]
      \item $\displaystyle z(x;y)=x-y$
      \item $\displaystyle z(x;y)=\smash{\frac{x}{y}}$
      \item $\displaystyle z(x;y)=x+y$
    \end{enumerate}
  \end{multicols}
\end{document}

This aligns the items vertically in a proper way.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[nikolaik]

Thank you!

The second solution is working for me.
I put every item completely into \smash:

Code: Select all

\begin{enumerate}[a)]
  \item $\displaystyle \smash{z(x;y)=x-y}$
  \item $\displaystyle \smash{z(x;y)=\frac{x}{y}}$
  \item $\displaystyle \smash{z(x;y)=x+y}$
\end{enumerate}

Never used \smash before.

Kind regards,

Nikolai