Avoid widows/orphans in a multicols environment

Question

In the following example, I have the feeling the list would be more readable if the five items are kept in the same column because we have room for it.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\begin{document}

\begin{multicols}{2}
\section{Foo}
\blindtext
\blindlist{itemize}
\section{Bar}
\blindtext
\end{multicols}

\end{document}

How to avoid the break if we have room on the column?

Answer 1

If you want to adjust only one particular place, then use \columnbreak which tells multicol to take an unconditional break at a certain point. If you do that in your example after the itemize it comes out as you want it because there is enough room available for multicol to interpret the column break as a break for the first column. Depending on how much space that leaves in the other column(s) you mayve have to add some \vfill or set some of the other multicol parameters to get what you want.

The other alternative is to use the unbalance counter. Using multicols* may be a possibility too, but then there is no balancing and you may still have to guide the breaking.

Here is what comes out just by adding a column break directly after the itemize: