I have a few tables which are not long enough to warrant the use of \longtable, but they always start on the next page which breaks the whole flow and trying to force it with a [!h] in the table did not help. So I stopped using \tables and just have \tabular tag now which seems to have fixed the layout as there are no floats.
But the problem now is I can't get automatic captions for the Tables - any ideas how I can do this and also get auto numbering so when I use \addcontentsline it can show up in the TOC?
To use a caption outside a float environment, one needs to use \captionof which is part of package caption.
Example
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{caption}
\begin{document}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{rl}
right & left \\
right & left \\
\end{tabular}
\captionof{table}{Your caption here}
\end{center}
\end{document}
There is also a capt-of package if you are just interested in using the command \captionof.
Short answer; you need a \table for the caption. Only using \tabular + captioning is not gonna work.
bit longer
There may be a nasty work-around as people tend to create work-arounds for everything, but my base rule for most of those work-arounds is: "if latex does not provide it by itself, do not try to do it". Most of time those "fixes" will give even more text-flow problems anyway.
Now if you really want it right below the text just do a \clearpage before the table and place the table. Than the rest of the text. This will probably solve it, although it will give an empty space on the rest of your 'previous' page of course.
Related
I am having issues with a report I am writing. First time using latex and after getting some help on here regarding some tables weirdness I again have a silly frustrating issue. Figures don't stay where I put them. I made a MWE Posted Below
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\graphicspath{ {./Figures/} }
%%%%%% Referencing %%%%%%
\usepackage{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{abbrvnat}
\setcitestyle{authoryear,open={(},close={)}}
\title{MWE}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{Introduction}
The average sea surface temperature (SST) trend is shown in Figure \ref{fig:SST}.
\section{Figures}
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width = \linewidth]{Figures/SST.png}
\label{fig:SST}
\end{figure}
\section{References}
\bibliography{References.bib}
\bibliographystyle{agsm}
\end{document}
I expect, probably an error, for the figure to be inserted under the Figures subheading however it appears on the next page after references. I have to refer to my figure in the text, hence the \ref{fig:SST} so it is clickable. It's not a size issue as there is more than enough space on the page to accommodate the figure. Even if that was the issue I would expect the references subheading to be after it.
Most latex classes use so called floats for figures, tables etc. The idea is that latex will automatically find a good place for your images and avoid ugly white space.
To make use of the abilities of latex to produce a good looking output, you must specify possible placements with floating specifier such as [htbp], which allows latex to place the image here, at the top, at the bottom or an a separate page.
Also if you want to use the \label-\ref mechanism, your figure must have a caption (and the label inside or after the caption).
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\graphicspath{ {./Figures/} }
%%%%%% Referencing %%%%%%
\usepackage{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{abbrvnat}
\setcitestyle{authoryear,open={(},close={)}}
\title{MWE}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{Introduction}
The average sea surface temperature (SST) trend is shown in Figure \ref{fig:SST}.
\section{Figures}
\begin{figure}[htbp]
\includegraphics[width = \linewidth]{example-image-duck}
\caption{test}
\label{fig:SST}
\end{figure}
\section{References}
\bibliography{References.bib}
\bibliographystyle{agsm}
\end{document}
Generally, LaTeX's attitude is ‘you write the text, let me worry about placing the figures’.
Floats (that is, figures and tables) will float to where LaTeX thinks they go best. I can't remember the precise rules in the article style, but generally they float to the top of the nearest following page that has room for them. LaTeX won't fill too much of a page with figures, so if you have a dense sequence of large-ish figures, some of them can end up quite a long way away from the point in the source text where they're written.
This is normal, and how figures and tables appear in the majority of published books and articles.
You'll usually write a caption:
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics{...blah...}
\caption{This is a caption for my figure\label{fig:SST}}
\end{figure}
Then you can write
...this is shown in Figure~\ref{fig:SST}
If you want to, you might add ...on p.\thinspace\pageref{fig:SST} and LaTeX will insert the page number where the figure ends up. Also, see the prettyref package.
As mentioned in the other answer, you can add placement specifiers like [ht], which give LaTeX permission to put the figure ‘here’ or at the top of a page, but that doesn't force anything. It is possible to fight with LaTeX about this (the Overleaf docs give some hints), but it's generally not worth it in my experience.
That said, one bit of guidance it's useful to give LaTeX is something like \renewcommand{\floatpagefraction}{.8}, which says that LaTeX is allowed to use as much as 80% of the page for floats (ie, figures and tables) – the default value is a bit tight (there are more comments on this in this TeX.SE question – tex.stackexchange.com is generally a better site for LaTeX-related questions).
If you do feel compelled to fight/fiddle with float placement, do it at the very end of the process, where you're fine-tuning the punctuation of your document. Small changes in the document can have big effects on where floats end up, and it's simply not worth worrying about this until your document is almost finalised.
Your final puzzlement was about the figure ending up after the references. In the case of your document, the figure goes on p.2, so there's plenty of space on p.1 for LaTeX to carry on setting text, so naturally it puts the references there. Since you generally do want the references to go at the very end of an article, this is a case where it's reasonable to exert a little control over placement, and a good idea would be to put \clearpage before the References section. What that does is to make a new page and force out any floats which are still in the queue waiting for space to appear.
I have a LaTeX table that looks like this:
\begin{table}[!ht]
\centering
\small
\caption{
\bf{Caption}}
\begin{tabular}{l|c|c|l|c|c|c|c|c}
field1 & field 2 & ... \\
\hline
...
the problem is that even with "\small" the table is too big, since I use:
\usepackage{setspace}
\doublespacing
in the header. How can I:
Make the table single spaced? and
Make the table smaller?
I'd like it to fit on an entire page.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Tables#Resize_tables talks about two ways to do this.
I used:
\scalebox{0.7}{
\begin{tabular}
...
\end{tabular}
}
As well as \singlespacing mentioned previously to reduce the height of the table, a useful way to reduce the width of the table is to add \tabcolsep=0.11cm before the \begin{tabular} command and take out all the vertical lines between columns. It's amazing how much space is used up between the columns of text. You could reduce the font size to something smaller than \small but I normally wouldn't use anything smaller than \footnotesize.
if it's too long for one page, use the longtable package. and if it's too wide for the page, use p{width} in place of l,r, or c for the column specifier. you can also go smaller than \small, i.e. \footnotesize and \tiny. I would consult the setspace package for options on how to remove the double space, though it's probably \singlespace or something like that.
There is also the singlespace environment:
\begin{singlespace}
\end{singlespace}
You could add \singlespacing near the beginning of your table. See the setspace instructions for more options.
If you want a smaller table (e.g. if your table extends beyond the area that can be displayed) you can simply change:
\usepackage[paper=a4paper]{geometry} to \usepackage[paper=a3paper]{geometry}.
Note that this only helps if you don't plan on printing your table out, as it will appear way too small, then.
I have a LaTeX document that contains a paragraph followed by 4 tables followed by a second paragraph. I want the 4 tables to appear between the two paragraphs which from what I've read means I should use the [h] option after beginning the table environment (e.g. \begin{table}[h]).
Using this the first two tables appear after paragraph 1 as expected, however paragraph 2 is then displayed with the last two tables appearing on the following page. How can I get the tables to appear in the correct location?
I've tried various things to correct the positioning such as using [h!] however this doesn't seem to have any effect. Using \clearpage after the tables does have the desired effect of making the tables appear before the second paragraph but it then leaves the last two tables on their own page with loads of white-space, when I would prefer to have the second paragraph begin immediately after the tables.
Paragraph 1...
\begin{table}[h]
table1...
\end{table}
\begin{table}[h]
table2...
\end{table}[h]
...
Paragraph 2...
After doing some more googling I came across the float package which lets you prevent LaTeX from repositioning the tables.
In the preamble:
\usepackage{float}
Then for each table you can use the H placement option (e.g. \begin{table}[H]) to make sure it doesn't get repositioned.
Table Positioning
Available Parameters
A table can easily be placed with the following parameters:
h Place the float here, i.e., approximately at the same point it occurs in the source text (however, not exactly at the spot)
t Position at the top of the page.
b Position at the bottom of the page.
p Put on a special page for floats only.
! Override internal parameters LaTeX uses for determining "good" float positions.
H Places the float at precisely the location in the LATEX code. Requires the float package. This is somewhat equivalent to h!.
If you want to make use of H (or h!) for an exact positioning, make sure you got the float package correctly set up in the preamble:
\usepackage{float}
\restylefloat{table}
Example
If you want to place the table at the same page, either at the exact place or at least at the top of the page (what fits best for the latex engine), use the parameters h and t like this:
\begin{table}[ht]
table content ...
\end{table}
Sources: Overleaf.com
At the beginning with the usepackage definitions include:
\usepackage{placeins}
And before and after add:
\FloatBarrier
\begin{table}[h]
\begin{tabular}{llll}
....
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\FloatBarrier
This places the table exactly where you want in the text.
Here's an easy solution, from Wikibooks:
The placeins package provides the command \FloatBarrier, which can be used to prevent floats from being moved over it.
I just put \FloatBarrier before and after every table.
What happens if the text plus tables plus text doesn't fit onto a single page? By trying to force the typesetting in this way, you are very likely to end up with pages that run too short; i.e., because a table cannot by default break over a page it will be pushed to the next, and leave a gap on the page before. You'll notice that you never see this in a published book.
The floating behaviour is a Good Thing! I recommend using [htbp] as the default setting for all tables and figures until your document is complete; only then should think about fine-tuning their precise placement.
P.S. Read the FAQ; most other answers here are partial combinations of advice given there.
If you want to have two tables next to each other you can use: (with float package loaded)
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{minipage}{.5\textwidth}
%first table
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}{.5\textwidth}
%second table
\end{minipage}
\end{table}
Each one will have own caption and number.
Another option is subfigure package.
In my case I was having an issue where the table was not being displayed right after the paragraph I inserted it, so I simply changed
\begin{table}[]
to
\begin{table}[ht]
You may want to add this to your preamble, and adjust the values as necessary:
%------------begin Float Adjustment
%two column float page must be 90% full
\renewcommand\dblfloatpagefraction{.90}
%two column top float can cover up to 80% of page
\renewcommand\dbltopfraction{.80}
%float page must be 90% full
\renewcommand\floatpagefraction{.90}
%top float can cover up to 80% of page
\renewcommand\topfraction{.80}
%bottom float can cover up to 80% of page
\renewcommand\bottomfraction{.80}
%at least 10% of a normal page must contain text
\renewcommand\textfraction{.1}
%separation between floats and text
\setlength\dbltextfloatsep{9pt plus 5pt minus 3pt }
%separation between two column floats and text
\setlength\textfloatsep{4pt plus 2pt minus 1.5pt}
Particularly, the \floatpagefraction may be of interest.
Not necessary to use \restylefloat and destroys other options, like caption placement. just use [H] or [!h] after \begin{table}.
In LaTeX figures, one can use \textwidth and \columnwidth to specify sizes of the graphic relative to the size of surrounding text, e.g.
\includegraphics[width=.5\textwidth]{myimage}.
I would like to easily switch from onecolumn to twocolumn template (and back) without the figure growing too large for onecolumn template. For twocolumn template (where \columnwidth is roughly half the \textwidth), I would like to have something like:
\includegraphics[width=.9\columnwidth]{myimage}.
and for onecolumn template (where \columnwidth and \textwidth are equal):
\includegraphics[width=.5\textwidth]{myimage}.
Now, I figured I could limit this using some kind of a min operator:
\includegraphics[width=min(.5\textwidth,.9\columnwidth)]{myimage} but this is invalid syntax. Is there something like this to solve this problem, possibly through the use of LaTeX macro system?
Although it's possible to write this sort of macro, I wouldn't want to hardcode it into each figure; how about something like this
\makeatletter
\newlength \figwidth
\if#twocolumn
\setlength \figwidth {0.9\columnwidth}
\else
\setlength \figwidth {0.5\textwidth}
\fi
\makeatother
and then use
\includegraphics[width=\figwidth]{myimage}
to insert the graphic.
\textwidth is the horizontal width of the page body and not really appropriate for your purposes.
\linewidth is the width of the current line; it will be updated appropriate to columns, indentation, etc.
The following paragraph produces a picture that should precisely fit the entire line width (i.e. no overful warning):
\noindent\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{myimage}
If you prefer small margins on the left and right, you can use:
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=.9\linewidth]{myimage}
\end{center}
Or, if you want to specify the margins in an absolute size:
\usepackage{calc}
...
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth-20pt]{myimage}
\end{center}
Hmm... the code above (\if#twocolumn etc.) is not working for me at all. No idea why not. :( tetex on osX using fink. Trying to use revtex4, so perhaps that's the problem. I really like the idea of this type of change because I'm going to be dorking with widths etc. for my thesis and various journal articles, and to have these distances specified with a macro may be helpful for these types of conversions.
Any comments greatly appreciated!
-Allen
Somebody else who is more familiar with this will probably answer, but note that you would also need to change your figure type to be figure* if you are going two-column.
I am using LaTeX and the figure environment.
I am well familiar with the parameters to that environment: [htbp], and I am also generally familiar with the strategies that LaTeX takes, by default, to decide where to put each figure. For example, by placing figures at the top or bottom of the page.
What I am wondering is whether there is a package, macro, or some commands that I can give so that if I have a single-column document and I mostly have a single in-text reference to a figure, that the figure would be more likely to be placed in the same page of the reference?
For example, imagine that I have a long paragraph which in the middle has a \ref{FIG:X}. When rendered, some of the paragraph appears before the page break, and some appears after the page break. I can also place the figure command somewhere before and after the whole paragraph. Is there a way to get it to actually be placed in the same page as the actual reference?
I don't want to sound too negative, but there are occasions when what you want is almost impossible without a lot of "artificial" tuning of page breaks.
If the callout falls naturally near the bottom of a page, and the figure falls on the following page, moving the figure back one page will probably displace the callout forward.
I would recommend (as far as possible, and depending on the exact size of the figures):
Place the figures with [t] (or [h] if you must)
Place the figures as near as possible to the "right" place (differs for [t] and [h])
Include the figures from separate files with \input, which will make them much easier to move around when you're doing the final tuning
In my experience, this is a big eater-up of non-available time (:-)
In reply to Jon's comment, I think this is an inherently difficult problem, because the LaTeX guys are no slouches. You may like to read Frank Mittelbach's paper.
Yes, include float package into the top of your document and H (capital H) as a figure specifier:
\usepackage{float}
\begin{figure}[H]
.
.
.
\end{figure}
You can always add the "!" into your float-options. This way, latex tries really hard to place the figure where you want it (I mostly use [h!tb]), stretching the normal rules of type-setting.
I have found another solution:
Use the float-package. This way you can place the figures where you want them to be.
I solve this problem by always using the [h] option on floats (such as figures) so that they (mostly) go where I place them. Then when I look at the final draft, I adjust the location of the float by moving it in the LaTeX source. Usually that means moving it around the paragraph where it is referenced. Sometimes I need to add a page break at an appropriate spot.
I've found that the default placement of floats is reasonable in LaTeX, but manual adjustments are almost always needed to get things like this just right. (And sometimes it isn't possible for everything to be perfect when there are lots of floats and footnotes.)
The manual for the memoir class has some good information about how LaTeX places floats and some advice for manipulating the algorithm.
If you want force this behaviour on all of your figures try
...
\usepackage{float}
\floatplacement{figure}{H}
...
Maybe this will help you?
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{picture_name}
\end{center}
I think is better to use the graphics command when your figures run away.
I have some useful comments. Because I had similar problem with location of figures.
I used package "wrapfig" that allows to make figures wrapped by text.
Something like
...
\usepackage{wrapfig}
\usepackage{graphicx}
...
\begin{wrapfigure}{r}{53pt}
\includegraphics[width=53pt]{cone.pdf}
\end{wrapfigure}
In options {r} means to put figure from right side. {l} can be use for left side.
\setcounter{topnumber}{2}
\setcounter{bottomnumber}{2}
\setcounter{totalnumber}{4}
\renewcommand{\topfraction}{0.85}
\renewcommand{\bottomfraction}{0.85}
\renewcommand{\textfraction}{0.15}
\renewcommand{\floatpagefraction}{0.7}
http://robjhyndman.com/researchtips/latex-floats/
One way I found that helps with this is to use \include{file_with_tex_figure_commands}
(not input)