Nonfloating figure spanning two columns in multicol environment

Question

I am using the multicol package, with two columns, and need a figure to span both columns. I am aware of \begin{figure*}, but I do not want the figure to float. I have been googling for about an hour, to no avail. Any help would be great.

Answer 1

Have a look at the package nonfloat (it is part of TeXlive so there is a good chance you already have it). The following example taken from the manual of nonfloat shows how you can have a non-floating figure with caption:

\begin{minipage}{\linewidth} 
\centering% 
\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth,clip=]{input.eps}% 
\figcaption{Caption}% 
\label{fig:input.eps}% 
\end{minipage} 

The nonfloat package provides the \figcaption command that can be used outside floats. In order to combine this with multicol I think you have to \end{multicols}, put the figure, and then \begin{multicols}{2}.