LaTeX alignment and orientation

[bhaazee]

LaTeX Help!

Currently I writing my Thesis report using LaTeX. I have been noticing the following problem.

I need the figures and text to be aligned in a page in the following orientation

text
figure
text
figure

However, what I obtain is

figure
text
text
figure

At times, this gets frustrating. Sometimes the figure jumps to the end of the next page. Tried out googling. Yet to find a proper solution. Would be helpful, if someone could suggest me a proper solution

Regards

 

[M Quack]

LaTeX is very ... sure ... about where figures should be.

If \begin{figure}[h] does not help, then it will be very difficult. Shifting paragraphs before or after the figure has some effect, but control is imprecise at best.

Why do you want the figures to be arranged exactly like this? You might have more luck with the two figures on a page of their own, opposite of the corresponding text.

 

[bhaazee]

well, as mentioned sometimes the figure moves completely away from the describing text. Have to drift over a couple of pages to co-relate the image with the text. Of course, images or text getting drifting by half a page is acceptable.

 

[D H]

LaTeX is very ... sure ... about where figures should be.

Better said, the developers of TeX and LaTeX were very sure that most authors are clueless regarding where figures should be. The algorithms were carefully constructed based on feedback from publishers and readability experts. It's a human factors thing. Most authors are clueless about human factors such as readability. Publishers are highly attuned to readability. An unreadable journal is unreadable. It won't last long.

At times, this gets frustrating.

LaTeX frees you from worrying about layout. You are fighting the very mechanisms that let you not have to worry about layout. Don't fight it. Look at it is liberating instead. If you don't have to worry about layout you will be able to focus on content. It's the content that's important.

Look at it this way: Suppose you publish a journal paper based on your thesis. Your submission must have the figures and tables completely separated from the paper proper in many journals. The publishers give the authors no say whatsoever regarding placement.

 

[AlephZero]

What D.H. said.

You can try the "nuclear option"

\usepackage{float}
...
\begin{document}
...
\begin{figure}[H]

But your next post might be a complaint that LaTeX did exactly what you told it to, and half your figure disappeared off the bottom of the page

 

[bhaazee]

well. I do agree with you guys. I tried some options. But unfortunately the document is getting messy. Better to take in few bad pages rather than losing many better pages.

Thanks both of you for your comments.