Bug#147204: tetex-base: Float placed on the page before the reference

["C.M. Connelly" <c@eskimo.com>]

[Hmm.  I never received the original report of this bug.  Not sure
what happened there.]

"ED" == Eugen Dedu <Eugen.Dedu@prism.uvsq.fr>

In any case, quoting from the webpage, 

    ED> Lamport writes that a float is never placed on a page
    ED> *before* its (first) reference.  I attach a text where
    ED> this happens (sorry, it has a few pages):

No, he doesn't.  The placement of floats and their references are
orthogonal to one another.

What Lamport actually says (in my 1986 edition of _LaTeX: A
Document Preparation System_) is that a float ``will not be
printed on an earlier page than the place in the text where the
figure or table environment appears'' (pg. 176).  In other words,
you won't find a float appearing on the first page when it's
defined on the last page of your source document.

Lamport doesn't say anything about \ref commands, because they
have no effect on float placement.

Everything else Atsuhito had to say in later messages about the
optional placement arguments and so forth is also true, of course,
but doesn't really address the original claim.

Now, according to _The Chicago Manual of Style_, Section 11.6,

   An illustration should be placed as close as possible to the
   first text reference to it.  The illustration may precede the
   reference only if it is on the same page as the reference;
   otherwise it should follow.

Given that, you could argue that LaTeX's float placement for this
border case is broken.  On the other hand, some people believe
that moving floats back is a good thing.

Given that there's a trivial workaround for the issue (moving the
float environment), I seriously doubt the LaTeX maintainers will
address this problem, although the float mechanism in LaTeX3 may
do things differently.

   CMC

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
 Man cannot be civilised, or be kept civilised by what he does in his
	    spare time; only by what he does as his work.
			     W.R. Lethaby
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
  C.M. Connelly               cmc@debian.org                   SHC, DS
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-tetex-maint-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org