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I have been writing a scientific paper il Latex for an IEEE conference.

The paper style is in 2 columns, and the last page of the paper contains a part of bibliography references. These last references are all on the 1st column, leaving the 2nd column empty. I would like that these last reference lines were equally divided into both columns, as shown in the attached image: image

I hope the image is clear...

The bibliography style I've been using is {thebibliography}

I knew there is a Latex command that allows me to separate the reference this way. How could I do?

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    It would be useful adding a MWE; the bibliography style you're using and the class are important data. – egreg Mar 29 '12 at 10:38
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You can use balance package. Put 

\usepackage{balance}

in the preamble. Then, somewhere in the first column of the last page, put

\balance

Following is a screen shot from the manual of balance package.

enter image description here

Disclaimer: This solution may work depending on your class and bibliography style or (worst) may not work. To have an accurate answer, pl provide a MWE.

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  • many thanx! It's right what I needed. Points to you ^_^ – DavideChicco.it Mar 29 '12 at 12:26
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    Another option is the package flushend. With flushend, it is not necessary to manually add a balancing command on the last page of your document. It handles the balancing for you. – TedPavlic Dec 16 '13 at 2:48
  • @TedPavlic: The flushend package is full of bugs. For example, in the last bib entry, the year may float into the left margin. Also it may line wraps in the middle of a bib entry. If I were to use flushend in my research paper, it would get rejected from the camera-ready review. Please do not recommend flushend. – Byron Hawkins Feb 11 '17 at 18:26
  • @Byron Hawkins: Yes, but placing \balance in the wrong place has a similar effect. Regardless, why would anyone submit such a mistake for camera-ready review? And often at that point in publication, there are additional constraints on what packages can realistically be used. For example, IEEE provides its own method, similar to balance, for balancing columns (which makes me wonder about the original posting). There are times when flushend will be very convenient and have little risk of making bad automatic choices about the balancing (especially in publications that do not end in refs). – TedPavlic Feb 12 '17 at 20:43
  • What if the bibliography starts in the previous-to-last page? Where do you put \balance? – MBolin Feb 23 at 13:26
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You can use the flushend package. Just add

\usepackage{flushend}

in your preamble. It will then take care of the balancing for you. There is no need to add a special macro on the final page of the document.

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2
  • 5
    The flushend package is full of bugs. For example, in the last bib entry, the year may float into the left margin. Also it may line wraps in the middle of a bib entry. If I were to use flushend in my research paper, it would get rejected from the camera-ready review. Please do not recommend flushend. – Byron Hawkins Feb 11 '17 at 18:25
  • @Byron Hawkins: Yes, but placing \balance in the wrong place has a similar effect. Regardless, why would anyone submit such a mistake for camera-ready review? And often at that point in publication, there are additional constraints on what packages can realistically be used. For example, IEEE provides its own method, similar to balance, for balancing columns (which makes me wonder about the original posting). There are times when flushend will be very convenient and have little risk of making bad automatic choices about the balancing (especially in publications that do not end in refs). – TedPavlic Feb 12 '17 at 20:40
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For IEEE papers, one can use \IEEEtriggeratref{} (as also suggested by @TedPavlic in the comments). See section XIV of IEEEtran LATEX Class documentation.

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