Align and twocolumn: too high on right column

Question

I'm making a collection of formulas for students. It has to be dense and fit on one page, so I decided to use \twocolumn. However, I hate it when things don't look nice and aligned, so the following photo is very frustrating.

This is from the top of the page

Notice how the right column is far too high. I want them to be nicely aligned on the top. Here is a reproducable example. I don't really know any tricks to make this minimal, heh

\documentclass[a4paper, twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\allowdisplaybreaks%
\begin{document}
\def\euler{e^{i\pi} &= -1}
\begin{align}
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    35e^{i\pi} & = -35 \\
    36e^{i\pi} & = -36 \\
    37e^{i\pi} & = -37 \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler
\end{align}
\end{document}

Add in \usepackage{nccmath}. See this answer. – AML May 04 '18 at 18:50 — AML, May 04 '18 at 18:50
Works! Want to make it an answer? – Andreas Storvik Strauman May 04 '18 at 19:36 — Andreas Storvik Strauman, May 04 '18 at 19:36

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 05 '18 at 00:06

According to this answer, you need to add the package nccmath and also use \useshortskip before align. According to page 3 of the documentation, "a manual replacement of the normal skip to the short skip is required in some cases". Apparently you found a case.

\documentclass[a4paper, twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{nccmath} % added this
\allowdisplaybreaks%
\begin{document}
\def\euler{e^{i\pi} &= -1}
\useshortskip % added this
\begin{align}
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    35e^{i\pi} & = -35 \\
    36e^{i\pi} & = -36 \\
    37e^{i\pi} & = -37 \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler             \\
    \euler
\end{align}
\end{document}

Align and twocolumn: too high on right column

1 Answers1