Figures to flow/distribute automatically over pages in LateX

Question

I have a long LaTeX script for making a document where most of the sections have three figures and they fit the page very good. In some random sections, we have six or nine figures. Therefore, the page will not fit these extra figures and they will overlay at the bottom of the page.

How can I automatically force the last three figures to appear on a separate page without the need to adjust each of these sections manually? (In other words, a way to make the clear page done automatically).

I am looking for something similar to longtable – Allow tables to flow over page boundaries environment to control the flow automatically.

Here is an example of the regular and random cases:

***Regular case***
    \begin{figure}[b!]
    \centering
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/A.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/B.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/C.png}
    \end{figure} 
    \clearpage

***Random case***
    \begin{figure}[b!]
    \centering
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/E.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/F.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/G.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/H.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/I.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/J.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/K.png}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/L.png}
    \end{figure} 
    \clearpage

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 02 '22 at 16:46

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I checked couple of posts on the internet regarding the issue and there are couple of ways to solve the problem (fairly good but not 100%).

First Solution: As mentioned by @samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz , the figure environment does not support page breaks. \captionof (from the caption package) and \label can be used for figure captioning and referencing.

\begingroup
     \centering
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/A.png} 
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/B.png} 
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/C.png} 
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/D.png} 
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/E.png} 
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/F.png} 
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/G.png} 
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/H.png} 
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/J.png} 
     \captionof{figure}{Whatever caption}
     \label{WhateverLabel}
\endgroup

Second Solution (Not the best automated solution): Divide the figure into subfigure and use \ContinuedFloat to break the pages but with the same caption and label.

\begin{figure}[b!]
\centering
 \begin{subfigure}[b!]{\textwidth}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/A.png}
 \end{subfigure}
 \begin{subfigure}[b!]{\textwidth}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/B.png}
 \end{subfigure}
 \begin{subfigure}[b!]{\textwidth}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/C.png}
 \end{subfigure}
\caption{whatever caption}
\label{WhateverLabel}  
\end{figure}
\clearpage

\begin{figure}[b!]
\ContinuedFloat
 \begin{subfigure}[b!]{\textwidth}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/D.png}
 \end{subfigure}
 \begin{subfigure}[b!]{\textwidth}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/E.png}
 \end{subfigure}
 \begin{subfigure}[b!]{\textwidth}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{Path/F.png}
 \end{subfigure} 
\caption{whatever caption}
\label{WhateverLabel} 
\end{figure}
\clearpage

Reference of Second Solution: Subfigure in LaTeX – Full Guide

Third Solution: Use figureSeries package created by @Prof. Thomas Weise. Unfortunately, it has not been updated since a while.

References of Third Solution: figureSeries Package on GitHub and figureSeries Package on Stack Exchange

Don't use `center` environment, it will add additional vertical spacing. Also it makes no sense because 1) you are already using `\centering` and 2) your images span the whole `\textwidth`, centering won't change anything anyway — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Mar 02 '22 at 12:11
Great input, many thanks @samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz. What could be the alternative package then to use instead of `figure` and `center`? It's my second day using LaTeX and still at the very beginning of the learning curve :) — m.m.hammad, Mar 02 '22 at 12:17
As shown in my answer, just don't wrap them in an environment. If you want to avoid the (unnecessary) `\centering` from influencing your surrounding text, you can wrap it inside a group or just use `{...}` around it — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Mar 02 '22 at 12:27

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 01 '22 at 16:41

The figure environment does not support page breaks. If you want something to break pages, don't use the figure environment.

In case you still need a caption and similar stuff, you can use the caption package like this:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}

\begin{document}

\begingroup
    \centering
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{example-image-duck}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{example-image-duck}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{example-image-duck}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{example-image-duck}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{example-image-duck}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{example-image-duck}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{example-image-duck}
     \includegraphics[width =\textwidth]{example-image-duck}
     \captionof{figure}{whatever caption}
\endgroup 

\end{document}

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I am connecting couple of text files in one report. Therefore, I have also other contents on different files. Unfortunately, removing the figure will arise other errors. Could be other alternative? — m.m.hammad, Mar 01 '22 at 17:24

Figures to flow/distribute automatically over pages in LateX

2 Answers2