General ⇒ Figure number in head of page-of-floats with fancyhdr

[Bozack]

I am making my thesis, and am playing around with all kinds of little optimizations for the look of the document. There is one thing I haven't been able to figure out though, and I hope that someone here might be able to point me in the right direction.

I want the header of my page-of-float's to contain the figure number (maybe figure numbers somehow automatically if there are more than one figure on the page). Right now, my header is configured with fancyhdr as in the following MWE:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
  \fancyfoot{}
  \fancyhead[LO]{\iffloatpage{}{\nouppercase{\leftmark}}}
  \fancyhead[RE]{\iffloatpage{}{\nouppercase{\rightmark}}}
  \fancyhead[RO]{\thepage}
  \fancyhead[LE]{\thepage}
  \pagestyle{fancy}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}

  \chapter{Chapter one}
  \lipsum[1]
  \section{Section one}
  \lipsum[2-3]

  \begin{figure}[p]
    \centering
    \rule{100mm}{150mm}
    \caption{figure one}
  \end{figure}

  \section{Section two}
  \lipsum[4-9]

  \begin{figure}[p]
    \centering
    \rule{100mm}{40mm}
    \caption{figure two}
  \end{figure}

  \begin{figure}[p]
    \centering
    \rule{100mm}{100mm}
    \caption{figure three}
  \end{figure}

  \section{Section three}
  \lipsum[7-8]

\end{document}

This gives the following pages, where I've marked in red what I want to happen where.

overview2.png (132.61 KiB) Viewed 6589 times

Any suggestions?

[Johannes_B]

I wouldn't do that if i were you, seriously. This is inconsistent and bad.

[Bozack]

This is inconsistent and bad.

Just out of curiosity, why would it be inconsistent? I know I'm nitpicking here.

Right now I simply have the headers on page-of-floats be empty apart from the page number (just like in the MWE). Do you have any suggestions to alternatives, or do you think this is for the best?

I am very much against having the \rightmark on a page-of-floats, since I sometimes have very small sections, and a page-of-float then might show a section name that the figure doesn't belong to. On the other hand, \leftmark (chapter) isn't as big a deal, since all figures belonging to a chapter should be set before the next chapter starts anyway.

[Johannes_B]

I would indeed leave the standard (leftmark, rightmark) on the pages. Since floats don't get out of order, they will stay in the document logic, maybe at a later place.
A picture has a caption, that describes what the picture is, what is seen on the picture.
In some books, all pictures are deferred to the appendix.


If you really want to do this, you would need to set the header by hand. If just one picture is on the page, ok. If two are present, you would need an and construct, this would again change when three pictures are present. Getting the numbers of the pictures would be hell as well and an insane amount of coding.

[Bozack]

Since floats don't get out of order, they will stay in the document logic, maybe at a later place. [...] A picture has a caption, that describes what the picture is, what is seen on the picture.

I still feel like it is wrong seeing the section header of a later section, when a figure belonging to an earlier section is finally shown - descriptive captions or not. Maybe I simply have to \clearpage my way out of this and force the few problematic figures to be typeset earlier (I'm not a big fan of forcing layout like that though). Or I will simply keep the page-number-only-for-float-pages as I have now.

If you really want to do this, you would need to set the header by hand. If just one picture is on the page, ok. If two are present, you would need an and construct, this would again change when three pictures are present. Getting the numbers of the pictures would be hell as well and an insane amount of coding.

I guess this was what I expected to be told to begin with, but hoped that I wouldn't. You've convinced me to stop pursuing this, thank you

I'll mark the topic as solved and let it stay for future reference.

[Johannes_B]

Package placeins knows a command \FloatBarrier which might be handy for you. It is in fact not much more than a simple \clearpage

[Stefan Kottwitz]

It is in fact not much more than a simple \clearpage

To add a bit to be more specific: in contrast to \clearpage, \FloatBarrier doesn't break the page if no float is waiting.

Stefan

[Bozack]

\FloatBarrier doesn't break the page if no float is waiting.

Pretty important difference. Thanks for clarifying!