I am writing a paper (revtex4-1, reprint documentclass which I believe uses twocolumn) and need to have a long equation that needs to break the two column format. I've seen answers to this question using multicol but I can't use that class. So does anyone know how to do this from twocolumn class?
I have tried one way that makes the equation a figure but I can't get the alignment with the text correct.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The widetext environment changes the formatting from two-column to one-column to better accommodate very long equations that are more easily read when typeset to the full width of the page:
\documentclass[twocolumn]{revtex4-1} \usepackage{lipsum} \begin{document} \lipsum[1] \begin{widetext} \[ a + b + c + d + e + f + g + h + i + j + k + l + m + n + o + p + q \] \end{widetext} \lipsum[1] \end{document} Note that the lipsum package and commands is used only for adding dummy text. 
lipsum and its command \lipsum is just added to provide some dummy/filler text. ! LaTeX Error: File 'widetext.sty' not found. is it a normal cse? widetext package, it's an environment defined by revtex4-1.