Re: org-latex and figures

["Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.com>]

On Jan 28, 2011, at 5:56 AM, Eric S Fraga wrote:

> Chris Malone <chris.m.malone@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hi Andrea,
>>
>> I'm inclined to agree with Tom - there is no default that will work  
>> in all
>> instances.  That being said, you can use an #ATTR_LATEX line to  
>> modify the
>> placement for each image - see here:
>> http://orgmode.org/org.html#Images-in-LaTeX-export
>>
>> Alternatively, (and this is very much a hack, which I can't  
>> guarantee will
>> work) you could make the org-mode default behaviour be [ptb] by  
>> replacing
>> the =(floatp "[htb]")= line with =(floatp "[ptb]")= in the
>> =org-export-latex-format-image= function definition in the file
>> org/lisp/org-latex.el ... you would have to do something similar to  
>> the
>> =org-export-latex-tables= function for tables.
>>
>> HTH,
>> Chris
>
> I'm not understanding something in this whole thread: all the example
> options seem to imply that 'h' and 'p' are somehow exclusive.  I have
> always used [hbtp] (a sequence that essentially says: put the figure  
> in
> place as soon as you can), sometimes with and sometimes without '!'
> before the h, and I have never had reason to complain about the
> placement of figures!
>
> Well, for some journals/conferences, I've had to adapt this to [hp] if
> they insist on figures always at the top of a page... but I always  
> have
> both h and p options.
>
> Just my two ¢s...
>

Hi Eric,

Floats are tricky in LaTeX.  The two most frequent problems, in my  
experience, are the "all the floats at the end" problem that bit  
Andrea and the "small float on its own page" problem.  The first of  
these comes from not including [p] and the second comes from including  
[p].  I think you have to pick your poison here--there doesn't seem to  
be a default that always works perfectly.

If you want to avoid both problems, as I do, then I find the best  
default strategy to be [htb!], with [p] used for figures that are  
designed specifically to fit the whole page.  What this implies is  
that figures are designed to fit the printed page, with a preference  
for figures that are short and wide and a strong aversion to figures  
that are tall and narrow (except, perhaps, with two-column layouts,  
which have their own drawbacks).

For figures at the top of a page, you probably want [tp] rather than  
[hp], since [h] will let a figure start anywhere in happens to fall on  
the page.

All the best,
Tom