# Getting extra spaces in two-sided document, but not in one-sided document [duplicate]

When I changed the article type from one-sided to two-sided, the spacing between certain enumerated lists increased exorbitantly. If I switch it back to one-sided type, the spacing vanishes and the text looks neat again. Can anyone pls help me how to fix this ?

The complete code is given below -

    \documentclass[12pt,twoside]{article}
\date{}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath, mathtools, amssymb, color, multicol, enumitem, fancyhdr, geometry}

\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{}
\fancyfootoffset{0.5 cm}
\fancyfoot[CE,CO]{\leftmark}

\geometry{a4paper, textwidth=470pt, textheight=670pt}

\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{1pt}

\begin{document}

\title{Mathematics - Level 1}
\maketitle{}
\break

\Large
\begin{center}
\section{Set Theory}
\end{center}
\vspace{10mm}

\large
\noindent \textbf{Key Concepts:} \normalsize \\

\begin{enumerate}
\item Definition of set
\item Types of sets (Empty set, singleton set, finite/infinite set, subset, superset, power set, disjoint sets, universal set)
\item Roster and set-builder methods
\item Intervals - Open, closed, semi-open/closed
\item Venn diagrams
\item Operations on sets (Complement, union, intersection, \\ difference, symmetric difference)
\item Addition theorem and other results
\item De-Morgan's laws
\end{enumerate}

\break

\noindent \textbf{Definition of set}
\begin{enumerate}
\item Identify whether the following collections are sets or not.
\begin{enumerate}
\item Days of a week
\item Natural numbers
\item Ten best batsmen in cricket \\
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\noindent \textbf{Roster Method and Set-builder Method}
\begin{enumerate}[resume]

\item Write the following sets using roster method.
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$A=\left\{x:x \in N, \hspace{2mm} x\leqslant 7 \right\}$$
\item $$A=\left\{x:x \in I, \hspace{2mm} -3 \leqslant x < 2 \right\}$$
\end{enumerate}

\item Write the following sets using set-builder method.
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$A=\left\{2,4,6,8,\cdots \cdots,200 \right\}$$
\item $$A=\left\{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2},\frac{2}{5},\frac{3}{10},\frac{4}{17},\frac{5}{26},\frac{7}{50},\frac{8}{65} \right\}$$ \\
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\noindent \textbf{Intervals}
\begin{enumerate}[resume]
\item Write the following intervals in set-builder notation.
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$(1, 2)$$
\item $$\big[ 1, 2 \big]$$
\item $$\text{\big[1, 2)}$$
\item $$\text{(1, 2\big]}$$
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}
\break

\noindent \textbf{Operations on Sets}
\begin{enumerate}[resume]
\item If $$A=\left\{1,2,3,5\right\},B=\left\{4,5,6,7\right\},C=\left\{5,7,9,10\right\}$$. \\ Also, universal set $$X=\left\{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12\right\}$$, then write the following sets.
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$A \cup B$$
\item $$A \cap C$$
\item $$A^{\prime} \cup \left( B-C \right)$$
\item $$(B \cup C)^{\prime}$$
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\break

\Large
\begin{center}
\section{Logarithms}
\end{center}
\vspace{10mm}

\large
\noindent \textbf{Key Concepts:} \normalsize \\
\begin{enumerate}
\item Definition of logarithms
\item Properties of logarithm
\item Change of Base formula
\end{enumerate}
\break

\noindent \textbf{Exponential and Logarithmic Notation} \normalsize

\begin{enumerate}

\item Express the following in logarithmic notation:
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$3^5=243$$
\item $$16^{1/2}=4$$
\item $$7^{-2}=\displaystyle \frac{1}{49}$$
\end{enumerate}

\end{enumerate}

\end{document}


## marked as duplicate by David Carlisle, Mensch, Phelype Oleinik, TeXnician, Stefan PinnowOct 12 '18 at 15:15

• Remove all the \break commands. – Fran Oct 12 '18 at 14:13
• Well, I can see that after removing \break commands, the spacing goes away, but I do want the page breaks to separate respective sections. Isn't it possible to have page breaks at all ? – Shankar Bhate Oct 12 '18 at 14:17
• unrelated but your usage of \Large is very weird, it will make the entire document Large, also \section and other headings should be at the top level never inside \begin{center} – David Carlisle Oct 12 '18 at 14:17
• @DavidCarlisle, well yeah, actually, I was struggling to decide what's the best way to have my courseware - article or book or report. Because, I am seeing some features are available only in some types but not all. So while posting the question, I did not make the changes to those other parts like font size. Will update that though in final stage. – Shankar Bhate Oct 12 '18 at 14:19
• No that markup is wrong whatever class you use. Your issue would be fixed by adding \raggedbottom but you should fix the markup first as latex will struggle to make any reasonable output – David Carlisle Oct 12 '18 at 14:21

Just remove all the \break commands. In case that you want to change to a new page or column after a list whenever it end, use \newpage. I will suggest instead the use of only \pagebreak[3] before of some tiles near of the end of page. See in the modified MWE below that this command do nothing instead of the \newpage after the first little list, but avoid end the second page with section 2 in one column (in twocolumn mode the vertical spaces are different and then is also ignored).

LaTeX still might try to fill the whole page increasing vertical spaces, but you can expect bad results mainly in last pages when there are little text available, that could result in huge spaces. As David said, you can use then \raggedbottom or \flushbottom, but you can see that I do not need that in my MWE. Take care also of not force figure/table positions as this can leave huge ending spaces tan LaTeX might try to disguise increasing paragraph skips, item separations, etc.

\large \noindent \textbf{<text>} \normalsize \\


...is simpler use ...

\subsection*{<text>}

...and better with respect to vertical spacing, for example, to left to LaTeX find a good page break.

As commented, to center the section you should not use the center environment, but may be use another document class as amsart (where by default the sections are centered), a package to redefine the section style as titlesec or sectsty, or simply as showed in the MWE:

\section[<short text>]{\centering <long text text>}


But note that the optional argument [<short text>] in now mandatory and also that this trick could not work in another class (for instance, in amsart).

\documentclass[12t,twoside]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath, mathtools, amssymb, enumitem, fancyhdr, geometry}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyfootoffset{0.5 cm}
\fancyfoot[CE,CO]{\leftmark}
\geometry{a4paper, textwidth=470pt, textheight=670pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{1pt}

\begin{document}

\section[Set Theory]{\centering Set Theory}

\section*{Key Concepts:}

\begin{enumerate}
\item Definition of set
\item Types of sets (Empty set, singleton set, finite/infinite set, subset, superset, power set, disjoint sets, universal set)
\item Roster and set-builder methods
\item Intervals - Open, closed, semi-open/closed
\item Venn diagrams
\item Operations on sets (Complement, union, intersection, \\ difference, symmetric difference)
\item Addition theorem and other results
\item De-Morgan's laws
\end{enumerate}

\newpage % force a page/column break, without extre item separation
% \pagebreak[4] % as \break  will force a page/column with huge glues.
% \pagebreak[3] % only "suggest strongly" a page break here
% (will not work if this left too much space).

\section*{Definition of set}

\begin{enumerate}
\item Identify whether the following collections are sets or not.
\begin{enumerate}
\item Days of a week
\item Natural numbers
\item Ten best batsmen in cricket \\
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\pagebreak[3]
\section*{Roster Method and Set-builder Method}

\begin{enumerate}[resume]
\item Write the following sets using roster method.
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$A=\left\{x:x \in N, \hspace{2mm} x\leqslant 7 \right\}$$
\item $$A=\left\{x:x \in I, \hspace{2mm} -3 \leqslant x < 2 \right\}$$
\end{enumerate}
\item Write the following sets using set-builder method.
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$A=\left\{2,4,6,8,\cdots \cdots,200 \right\}$$
\item $$A=\left\{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2},\frac{2}{5},\frac{3}{10},\frac{4}{17},\frac{5}{26},\frac{7}{50},\frac{8}{65} \right\}$$ \\
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\subsection*{Intervals}
\begin{enumerate}[resume]
\item Write the following intervals in set-builder notation.
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$(1, 2)$$
\item $$\big[ 1, 2 \big]$$
\item $$\text{\big[1, 2)}$$
\item $$\text{(1, 2\big]}$$
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\subsection*{Operations on Sets}
\begin{enumerate}[resume]
\item If $$A=\left\{1,2,3,5\right\}, B=\left\{4,5,6,7\right\}, C=\left\{5,7,9,10\right\}$$. \\ Also, universal set $$X=\left\{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12\right\}$$, then write the following sets.
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$A \cup B$$
\item $$A \cap C$$
\item $$A^{\prime} \cup \left( B-C \right)$$
\item $$(B \cup C)^{\prime}$$
\item $$(B \cup C)^{\prime}$$
\item $$(B \cup C)^{\prime}$$
\item $$(B \cup C)^{\prime}$$
\item $$(B \cup C)^{\prime}$$
\item $$(B \cup C)^{\prime}$$
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\pagebreak[3] % now it works nicely.

\section[Logarithms]{\centering Logarithms}
\subsection*{Key Concepts:}

\begin{enumerate}
\item Definition of logarithms
\item Properties of logarithm
\item Change of Base formula
\end{enumerate}

\subsection*{Exponential and Logarithmic Notation}

\begin{enumerate}
\item Express the following in logarithmic notation:
\begin{enumerate}
\item $$3^5=243$$
\item $$16^{1/2}=4$$
\item $$7^{-2}=\displaystyle \frac{1}{49}$$
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}

• Thanks @Fran.. I think this is the main challenge I am facing that there are multiple similar looking commands to achieve the same purpose e.g. \break and \newpage. Not sure if these two are EXACTLY same or some fine underlying difference. I will find on help section.. No worries, I think I need to introduce sections and sub-sections (which I had thought earlier, but didn't do). Will try it now. – Shankar Bhate Oct 12 '18 at 14:29
• @ShankarBhate \break isn't a latex command (it is copied from plain tex but you should not see it in any latex documentation) – David Carlisle Oct 12 '18 at 14:32