# How to change the spacing between figures/tables and text?

I was wondering if there is any way to lessen the spaces between figures and text. In my paper I have a lot of figures (graphics) and it is inconvenient for me to have default (large) spaces between text and graphics. Is there any command I could use to change the default settings?

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Maybe you'd benefit from grouping figures with `subfig`? –  N.N. Aug 25 '11 at 15:08
Here's a related answer: Space after float with h. It also shows a graphic of where the lengths play a role - from the `layouts` package documentation. –  Werner Aug 25 '11 at 15:47

Change one or more of the following lengths:

• `\textfloatsep` — distance between floats on the top or the bottom and the text;
• `\floatsep` — distance between two floats;
• `\intextsep` — distance between floats inserted inside the page text (using `h`) and the text proper.

The command used to change them is `\setlength`:

``````\setlength{\textfloatsep}{10pt plus 1.0pt minus 2.0pt}
``````

The default values in the `article` document class with the `10pt` option are:

• `\textfloatsep`: `20.0pt plus 2.0pt minus 4.0pt`;
• `\floatsep`: `12.0pt plus 2.0pt minus 2.0pt`;
• `\intextsep`: `12.0pt plus 2.0pt minus 2.0pt`.

You can get them yourself with `\showthe\textfloatsep` or `\the\textfloatsep` etc.

The `plus` and `minus` parts allow the space to stretch or shrink (the greater they are, the more it stretches or shrinks when needed). It's not recommended to leave out the `plus` and `minus` parts, as it leaves LaTeX less typesetting choices to select from and the output might look worse.

When typesetting in two column mode, two more lengths are available:

• `\dbltextfloatsep` — distance between a float spanning both columns and the text;
• `\dblfloatsep` — distance between two floats spanning both columns.

Remember that too little space will, again, make the document look worse.

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"\intextsep — distance between floats inserted inside the page text (using h) and the text proper." so if I use H(capital H) which option should I change ? –  kronos Aug 25 '11 at 15:38
@kronos: It is the same for `h` and `H`. –  Andrey Vihrov Aug 25 '11 at 15:44
@AndreyVihrov One important question remains: How can I set this locally? I know I can use `\begingroup`, so my question is rather, does that change for the whole document if I place `\setlength{\textfloatsep}{10pt plus 1.0pt minus 2.0pt}` before the figure? Also maybe there is a different way to obtain local changes? –  TomM Jan 3 at 22:56