[Tex/LaTex] How to balance columns in the last page of a bibliography section

acmbibliographiestwo-columnvertical alignment

I need to balance the heights of the last two columns of my ACM article that is typeset using sigplanconf.cls. This class file defines the following command:

\newcommand{\balancecolumns}{%
  \vfill\eject
  \global\@colht = \textheight
  \global\ht\@cclv = \textheight}

However, the above \balancecolumns command didn't work for me. I also tried the solutions proposed in response to similar questions: How to balance last page of two-column layout?, Uneven text distribution with two-column layout, and https://stackoverflow.com/q/2149854/130224. Specifically, I tried the flushend, balance, and multicol pacakges. But, none of these packages could automatically balance the last two columns of my bibliography section.

I managed to manually break the list of references using the command \vfill\eject. But, this solution required manipulating the generated bbl file. I'd prefer an automatic solution that doesn't require changing a generated file.

Note that, the bibliography section is the last section of the article, but it runs over two pages.

Best Answer

With the balance package the output is correct.

One must issue \balance between two paragraphs that fall in the first column of the final page. This might need to insert it manually in the .bbl file, if the last page consists only of bibliography items.

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