[texhax] figures and text aligned

[Steve Schwartz]

Martin,

> I am trying to place a \figure side by side with some text. That is, I want the
> figure to take up only part of the width of the page and then have text placed
> on the rest of the width. It appears that I am not doing my search very well, as
> I don't find anything useful.
> Thank you
> Martin

If what you want is to have some FIXED text next to your figure (as
opposed to text flowing around it), put the graphic and text inside a
tabular environment. Use the array package to control the vertical
alignment within the single row to centre the text vertically next to
the figure. This will also work inside a floating environment, although
it will take a guru to tell you how to convince latex to accept the
\caption inside the tabular environment. But you can put it outside the
tabular but inside the float. 

I won't scream at you for not finding your way 'round the TeX Faq. [But
I found everything I needed by typing a few keywords into google(!)
though I have a few phrases I turn to when I'm desperate,  like "use
tabular" or "put it in an hbox" which got me most of the way. ]

Here's a short sample (use your own figure in place of png):

-----------------------snip-------------------------
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{array}

\begin{document}

Let's try

% m{<width>} centres vertically in a col of width <width>
\begin{tabular}{m{0.3\textwidth}|m{0.7\textwidth}}
\includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{png} & 
\parbox{0.5\textwidth}{Here is a
bunch of text which will get set alongside the figure.}
\end{tabular}

And it works in a figure environment as well:

\begin{figure}
\begin{tabular}{m{0.5\textwidth}m{0.5\textwidth}}
\includegraphics[width=0.45\textwidth]{png}
 & \parbox{0.45\textwidth} {Here is a
bunch of text which will get set alongside the figure.}
\end{tabular}
\caption{What a pretty figure}
\end{figure}

\end{document}


-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Steve Schwartz               S.J.Schwartz at qmul.ac.uk            |
| Astronomy Unit                                                  |
| Queen Mary, Univ. of London  Tel: +44 (0)20 7882 5449           |
| Mile End Road                Fax: +44 (0)20 8983 3522           |
| London E1 4NS, UK            URL: www.space-plasma.qmul.ac.uk/  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+