Weird line spacing of last paragraph in mini page - why?

Question

I'm playing around with the titlepage package and have run into a formatting issue. Basically, I need to change the font size for some of the back title contents, and while this works for most of the contents, the last paragraph is not formatted correctly. I've been able to replicate the issue with a simple minipage demo:

\documentclass[a4paper,pagesize]{scrbook}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\begin{document}
  \begin{titlepage}
    \begin{minipage}[t]{\textwidth}
      Some text at the top.
    \end{minipage}\par
    \vfill
    \begin{minipage}[b]{\textwidth}
      \begin{scriptsize}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In sapien massa, facilisis tincidunt tincidunt sed,
sollicitudin ac turpis. Nulla facilisi. Nam nec porttitor arcu, non venenatis tellus. Mauris ornare massa non molestie
ullamcorper. Vestibulum eleifend dolor ipsum, fermentum tristique risus molestie ut. Sed vitae odio nec lacus porta
sodales at sed nisl. Nulla facilisi. Duis in elit dapibus, suscipit odio nec, blandit lorem. Sed id dictum lorem. Donec
dapibus libero in nunc rutrum, et gravida massa vehicula.

Cras lobortis nec sem quis interdum. Donec nec malesuada ipsum. Sed non cursus augue, id tempor mi. Vivamus mauris
tellus, luctus nec dolor ac, rutrum ornare mi. Nam hendrerit pharetra auctor. Donec ut varius ante, vitae sodales metus.
Maecenas vestibulum congue vehicula. Aliquam quis viverra mi.
      \end{scriptsize}
    \end{minipage}
  \end{titlepage}
\end{document}

I've also tried to use {\scriptsize ... } instead of the scriptsize environment, but the result is the same:

problem

As you can see, the last paragraph is typeset using the wrong line spacing. What is happening here, and what can I do to prevent this?

\scriptsize is not an environment but a “switch” command. — Manuel, Jul 13 '14 at 17:18
You can fix it by adding a blank line after the last paragraph. — John Kormylo, Jul 13 '14 at 17:38
John Kormylo: Why does the blank line fix it? I'm happy with this fix, but want to know the reason it works. — jdc, Oct 21 '14 at 05:09

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 13 '14 at 17:23

It has to do with a \par command that must be at the end of the paragraph so it's constructed. I will try to say a few things but I'm not the most versed one :D

First (and logical option):

\documentclass[a4paper,pagesize]{scrbook}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\begin{document}
  \begin{titlepage}
    \begin{minipage}[t]{\textwidth}
      Some text at the top.
    \end{minipage}\par
    \vfill
    \begin{minipage}[b]{\textwidth}
      \scriptsize
      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In sapien massa, facilisis tincidunt tincidunt sed,
      sollicitudin ac turpis. Nulla facilisi. Nam nec porttitor arcu, non venenatis tellus. Mauris ornare massa non molestie
      ullamcorper. Vestibulum eleifend dolor ipsum, fermentum tristique risus molestie ut. Sed vitae odio nec lacus porta
      sodales at sed nisl. Nulla facilisi. Duis in elit dapibus, suscipit odio nec, blandit lorem. Sed id dictum lorem. Donec
      dapibus libero in nunc rutrum, et gravida massa vehicula.

      Cras lobortis nec sem quis interdum. Donec nec malesuada ipsum. Sed non cursus augue, id tempor mi. Vivamus mauris
      tellus, luctus nec dolor ac, rutrum ornare mi. Nam hendrerit pharetra auctor. Donec ut varius ante, vitae sodales metus.
      Maecenas vestibulum congue vehicula. Aliquam quis viverra mi.
    \end{minipage}
  \end{titlepage}
\end{document}

Second option

{\scriptsize
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In sapien massa, facilisis tincidunt tincidunt sed,
sollicitudin ac turpis. Nulla facilisi...

... Maecenas vestibulum congue vehicula. Aliquam quis viverra mi.\par}

In case you need this construction {\scriptsize … \par}. A blank line is automatically converted to \par so the first paragraph is cool. However, the second one does not have a blank line nor a \par (and the one that minipage probably inserts is outside that group {\scriptsize …}), so you need to add it explicitly.

Weird line spacing of last paragraph in mini page - why?

1 Answers1