Position tikz graph at the bottom of twocolumn page in memoir

Question

According to section 10.4 of memoir manual double column floats may only be placed at the top of a page. However, I need a tikz graph at the bottom of the page.

So I have tried using minipage(floating is not required), but have not been able to get this approach to work either - either the text flows through the graph, or the graph is not at the bottom of the page.

What should I change to properly position a tikz figure at the bottom of the twocolumn page?

\documentclass[twocolumn,article]{memoir}

\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\section{First section}
\lipsum[1]

\begin{minipage}[b]{\textwidth}
\makebox[\textwidth]{%
\tikz\node[draw,fill=blue!20, minimum height = 4cm, text width=\linewidth] {};
}
\end{minipage}

\lipsum[2-9]

\begin{minipage}[b]{\textwidth}
\makebox[\textwidth]{%
\tikz\node[draw,fill=blue!20, minimum height = 4cm, text width=\linewidth] {};
}
\end{minipage}


\end{document}

Answer 1

You problem is not specific to memoir. According to the UK TeX FAQ, full-width floats in two-column LaTeX documents are not permitted at the bottom of the page. The FAQ also reveals a partial remedy (use the dblfloatfix package) as well as its shortcomings (e.g., "the float will appear, at its earliest, on the page after it is specified" ).

\documentclass[twocolumn,article]{memoir}

\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{dblfloatfix}

\begin{document}

\section{First section}

\lipsum[1]

\begin{figure*}[b]
\makebox[\textwidth]{%
\tikz\node[draw,fill=blue!20, minimum height = 4cm, text width=\linewidth] {};
}
\end{figure*}

\lipsum[2-15]

\end{document}