I'm trying to make a half-sheet (letter-size paper) checklist with two columns using LaTeX. I set the page size to 8.5x5.5 inches, used fancyheader to put the title at the top of pages, defined a checklist environment, and set \twocolumn.
Then I put the checklist section itself in \foreach \n in {1,2} to print two half-sheets into the output file. Then I'll use my pdf viewer to print two pages/sheet.
This all works great, except for the fact that the line spacing is off on the second page. The first page is perfect, but on the second page (which I'd expect to be the same), the second column has slightly smaller line spacing than the first, which leads to it being significantly off by the bottom of the page. Why is this happening?
Here's a link to my output, if it'd be easier than compiling the document: http://thetechnicalgeekery.com/downloads/temp/checklist.pdf
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
% size
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{papersize={8.5in, 5.5in}}
\geometry{margin=1in}
% checkbox list
\usepackage{latexsym}
\newenvironment{checklist}{
\begin{list}{}{}
\let\olditem\item
\renewcommand\item{\olditem[$\Box$] }
}{
\end{list}
}
% title
\newcommand{\doctitle}{Checklist}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{}
\fancyhead[RO,RE]{\LARGE \doctitle \normalsize}
% other stuff
\usepackage{tikz}
\twocolumn
\begin{document}
\foreach \n in {1,2} { % print 2 copies for 2 to a page
\begin{checklist}
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\item Item 1
\item Item 2
\end{checklist}
} % foreach
\end{document}
fancyhdr
tells you in the log that you have to set the head height to at least 18.7528pt; setheadheight=19pt
in the argument to\geometry
multicols
environment instead of the\twocolumn
declaration:\usepackage{multicol}
in the preamble,\begin{multicols}{2}
before the\foreach
and\end{multicols}
after it.