Page Layout ⇒ Multicolumn Misalignment Problem

[celestialorb]

Hello all,

I'm having a problem with the multicol environment.

I currently have the following LaTeX code:

Code: Select all

\begin{multicols}{3}
	{
		\begin{equation}\sum F_x = 0\end{equation}
		\begin{equation}\frac{dP}{dx} - p = 0\end{equation}
	}
	{
		\begin{equation}\sum F_y = 0\end{equation}
		\begin{equation}\frac{dQ}{dx} + q = 0\end{equation}
	}
	{
		\begin{equation}\sum M = 0\end{equation}
		\begin{equation}\frac{dQ}{dx} + q = 0\end{equation}
	}
\end{multicols}

However, when I render the document I get the following layout of the various equations (click to go to imgur page for larger image):


Does anyone know why the third column appears to be shifted up? If it matters I'm using the AIAA's official LaTeX styling.

[woj-k]

With multicol it's important to keep track of any superfluous whitespace that's introduced (a linebreak in the .tex file counts as a space, etc.) The easiest way to avoid suprises is to end every line with a comment sign. Here you also need a \noindent, for obvious reasons.

Code: Select all

    \begin{multicols}{3}%
       \noindent%
       {%
          \begin{equation}\sum F_x = 0\end{equation}%
          \begin{equation}\frac{dP}{dx} - p = 0\end{equation}%
       }%
       {%
          \begin{equation}\sum F_y = 0\end{equation}%
          \begin{equation}\frac{dQ}{dx} + q = 0\end{equation}%
       }%
       {%
          \begin{equation}\sum M = 0\end{equation}%
          \begin{equation}\frac{dQ}{dx} + q = 0\end{equation}%
       }%
    \end{multicols}

Kind regards,
woj-k