LaTeX table positioning

117
votes

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...
9
latex
The order of (all of) the letters in the optional argument has no effect. – Will Robertson
@Gacek, I bet Will Robertson is right. According to mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/bibliog/latex/floats.html, "[t]he arguments in brackets tell LaTeX where it's possible to put the float; their order is unimportant." – Waldir Leoncio
This is only slightly related, but I feel that it is important to know: The [h] option should never be used alone, and in fact, newer LaTeX versions replace it with [ht] automatically. That might have been your problem as well. You can read more in this guide in section 17.2 "Figure Placement". – vauhochzett
@Gacek [h!] is the correct version. It's the equivalent to [H]. Both require the float package. – winklerrr

9 Answers

193
votes

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.

33
votes

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.

29
votes

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

9
votes

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.

8
votes

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.

5
votes

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.

4
votes

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.

3
votes

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]
1
votes

Not necessary to use \restylefloat and destroys other options, like caption placement. just use [H] or [!h] after \begin{table}.