Float images & tables?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

>the text from after Fig.1 would be laid out at the bottom of the page down to the end of the page, and then Fig.1 would again appear at the top of the very next page

Anyone who has read many e-books must be accustomed to those occasional short pages, just as he is accustomed to the occasional short line (much to be preferred IMHO to the wild hyphenating that is sometimes used to justify lines). I think that to begin a caption on a page without an image would confuse more people than it would help.

That said, I often try to work caption information into the preceding paragraph, to avoid situations where the image appears at the bottom of the page and the caption is forced to the next page. An image without caption information is more mysterious than caption information without an image, at least in the way I use images as illustrations for the text.

The reference to figure 1 mentioned the image, not the caption and text after Figure 1 was not the caption either. The caption should be kept with the image.

Dale

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by jbacelar

Certainly there are no pages (the fixed pages in a paper book), but screens, displays, or as we like to call them.

Personally, I like to call them "pages", by analogy with a printed book, even though the amount of text is variable depending on font size changes etc...

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Anyone who has read many e-books must be accustomed to those occasional short pages

You can get used to anything; it doesn't make it right, and it shouldn't prevent us from trying to do better.

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I think that to begin a caption on a page without an image would confuse more people than it would help.

Which is why I talked about "block elements" in my original question. If an image has an associated caption, don't float the image; wrap the image and caption in a div and float the div.

In general I'm looking for something like pdurrant proposes. Jane reads at font size 1, and there's room for the element to fit on the page; Joe reads at size 8, so there isn't room for the element on the current page, and it gets shelved temporarily by the renderer until the top of the next page (ok, no "pages"; screen, display, boojum, whatever) and then displayed.

Hitch is worrying about pathological cases, but try blowing up the font size to huge on just about any webpage and you get these sort of problems. Most people never do this so don't find out the problems. Example: a couple of quite long paras with an image floated left of the top of para 1, and an image floated right at the top of para 2. Now reduce the font size so that the paras are shorter than the images (or widen the page) and it looks horrible. This is a problem for the book designer/compositor; he/she has to do things in a way that will make sense in the majority of cases. Just as there are well-designed websites that work well for most people, and others that are badly-designed and look horrible to most people.

In this case it seems we just don't have the tools available to even try to make it look nice, so it seems we just have to shut up and put up with books that look horrible in all cases, not just the pathological ones.

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The reference to figure 1 mentioned the image, not the caption and text after Figure 1 was not the caption either. The caption should be kept with the image.

Dale

Let me refer you to to the original question:

Originally Posted by Phssthpok

Is there a way to float a block element in a reflowable book (e.g. a table, or a div containing an image and caption) so that it will be displayed at the top (or bottom) of a page, and so that text will be flowed around it to avoid having a huge blank area on the page before?

I never suggested floating images only...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Phssthpok

Let me refer you to to the original question:I never suggested floating images only...

Never said you did. I was responding to NotJohn, not you, which is why I quote his comment.

Dale

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Never said you did. I was responding to NotJohn, not you, which is why I quote his comment.

Dale

OK, so it was NotJohn who misunderstood. IMHO the concept "Figure1" refers to the image together with any associated caption, not to an image in isolation.