[OS X TeX] spacing problems in TeXshop Figure/Table macros

Ross Moore ross at ics.mq.edu.au
Fri Feb 8 16:52:33 EST 2008


Hi all,

I don't know who looks after the macros that TeXshop provides;
probably Dick Koch, but maybe someone else.

But there is a minor mistake in those relating to insertion
of figures.

Currently when choosing
     Macros > Figures > regular
the result is:

   \begin{figure}[htbp]
   \begin{center}

   \caption{default}
   \label{default}
   \end{center}
   \end{figure}

which is OK coding, but not the best possible.
The use of  \begin{center} ... \end{center} here results in too
much vertical space above and below the actual contents of the float.
That is, the size of the float becomes larger than necessary, which
can mean that it becomes harder than necessary to fit a float onto
a page where it might otherwise fit nicely, and there can be clearly
too much space between two floats on the same page.

Better is to use the declarative form of centering; viz.

   \begin{figure}[htbp]
   \centering

   \caption{default}
   \label{default}
   \end{figure}


The same comment applies to:

     Macros > Figures > epsfile

and perhaps also to:

     Macros > Tables > table

where here one must look also at the space between the caption
and the body of the table.



Hope this helps,

	Ross

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross Moore                                         ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                             office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                               tel: +61 +2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia  2109                            fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
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