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I am typesetting a simple songbook and would like some songs to be displayed in two columns (I use the multicol package). However, I would like to prevent inserting a columnbreak within a stanza. It would be great to have something like a samecol environment.

I tried to apply hints from Prevent column break in multicolumn index, but it didn't yield the expected result.

I'd be grateful for any advice.

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    Couldn't \begin{minipage}{\linewidth}...\end{minipage} serve as a samecol environment? Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 10:39
  • doesn't \begin{samepage}..\end{somepage} work? Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 14:20
  • Thanks for both suggestions. minipage works, of course with its usual drawbacks. samepage doesn't work. Commented Jul 23, 2012 at 19:11
  • I want this question to be answered correctly. I have a MWE. What is the best way for me to share my MWE? Should I start a new question? Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 19:43
  • @ahorn: Post it to Pastebin and then add the link to this post. I assume your setup is similar to the question? Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 19:50

4 Answers 4

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I found the answer accidentally, while looking for something else. In order to prevent column break within a stanza I mark line ends with \\* instead of \\. Example:

\begin{multicols}{2} \begin{verse} I heard, I heard, the old man say,\\* John Kanaka-naka tu-lai-ay!\\* Today, today is a holiday,\\* John Kanaka-naka tu-lai-ay! Tu-lai-ay, Oh! Tu-lai-ay!\\* John Kanaka-naka tu-lai-ay! \end{verse} \end{multicols}

I realize this does not solve the general problem of column break prevention, but perfectly fits my needs.

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I suggest you take a look at the needspace package and its macro \Needspace{}. This macro should be invoked with the number of lines that need to be kept together, expressed in multiples of \baselineskip. Thus, \Needspace{5\baselineskip} will keep the next five lines together by forcing a column break, if necessary, before the start of the stanza. Note that it should only be used between paragraphs (stanzas).

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  • Thank you for the answer. However, it doesn't work. Maybe due to the fact that inside multicol environment I put theverse environment. Commented Jul 23, 2012 at 19:08
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    @mac-p - thanks for this feedback. Please consider editing your question to include a more specific description; providing a full MWE (minimum working example) that reproduces the problem in question would be especially helpful. Hopefully, having this additional information will help me and/or others figure out a solution. Commented Jul 23, 2012 at 19:21
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I have found a solution that works for me, although the factor that \linewidth needs to be multiplied by may need to be adjusted in different situations:

Put

\newenvironment{stanza} {\begin{minipage}{1.1\linewidth} \begin{verse}} {\end{verse} \end{minipage}}

in the preamble, and use the stanza environment for the stanzas that are troublesome.

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  • Well, it's the first time I'm not going to award a bounty. Commented Jul 20, 2016 at 17:26
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This worked perfectly for me

\begin{minipage}{\linewidth} no line break after ":": \begin{compactitem} \item no line break before me \item yay \end{compactitem} \end{minipage}
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