[OS X TeX] Placement of page-sized figure

[Richard J Benish]

>Something like this has worked for me:
>
>...
>\usepackage{graphicx}
>\newdimen\myht
>\myht=\textheight
>\advance\myht -.5in %or a bit less
>\begin{document}
>...
>\newpage
>\noindent
>\begin{figure}[h]
>\centering\includegraphics[width=\textwidth,height=\myht]{mygraphic}%full 
>width, .5 in left below
>\caption{Regular caption}
>\end{figure}
>\newpage
>
>Michael


That looks interesting. I found a workaround that I hesitate to 
fiddle with since it does what I want. So I will keep your suggestion 
as something to explore later.

What I've found involves

\usepackage[section]{placeins}

It was recommended in the document, Using Imported Graphics in LaTeX 
and pdfLaTeX by Keith Reckdahl.

In this document I also found a curious comment about one of the  h, 
t, b, and p commands:

"In fact, the  [h] option should never be used. It is so bad that 
recent versions of LaTeX automatically change it to [ht]."

I don't know whether, in current versions, this is supposed to have 
been fixed. Regardless, in my naive way, I think of [h] as meaning, 
"put the thing here." Is that so hard for the program to understand? 
When my command is refused, I pull my hair. To me, it's the most 
important of the 4 options, which ought to work every time.

Anyhow, thanks much for your suggestion.

Richard