Override tendency to avoid filling entire page with floats

Question

I'm working on a two column document, and on one of the pages, I want to fill an entire column with three different floats. But when I use, for instance, h!, ht!, b, b!, t!, etc., on all three of them (or any combination of these), I get two in one column and one in the other. Is there a package or something that fixes this problem.

Answer 1

If I want to keep a bunch of figures together, I simply use one figure environment:

\begin{figure}
    \includegraphics{foo}
    \caption{Foo}
    \vspace{5mm}
    \includegraphics{bar}
    \caption{Baz}
    \vspace{5mm}
    \includegraphics{bar}
    \caption{Baz}
\end{figure}

It looks a bit strange, but it works. You can have multiple \captions in one figure environment.

Now there is no way Latex can place these three figures on different columns or different pages. You can fine-tune \vspaces to your needs.

Answer 2

Probably the easiest way to handle this is to use the afterpage package along with the float package's H specifier. Here's a complete example.

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{afterpage}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\afterpage{
        \begin{figure}[H]
        \fbox{Top figure}
        \caption{Top figure}
        \end{figure}
        \vfill
        \begin{figure}[H]
        \fbox{Middle figure}
        \caption{Middle figure}
        \end{figure}
        \vfill
        \begin{figure}[H]
        \fbox{Bottom figure}
        \caption{Bottom figure}
        \end{figure}
        \newpage
}
\lipsum
\end{document}

Another option is to use the p float placement specifier outside of the \afterpage. There's no guarantee that those three will appear together with that.

Answer 3

In two-column mode, a "column" is equivalent to a "page" in one-column mode. So if you want three floats in one column on their own, simply specify the [p] float option. For example:

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\begin{figure}[p]
\centering
\rule{10em}{10em}
\caption{A black box.}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[p]
\centering
\rule{10em}{10em}
\caption{A black box.}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[p]
\centering
\rule{10em}{10em}
\caption{A black box.}
\end{figure}
\lipsum
\end{document}

Answer 4

simplest and obvious answer for me...

\clearpage
\begin{figure}
    .....
\end{figure}

\vfill

\begin{figure}
    .....
\end{figure}

\clearpage

that way the figures will be alone in 1 page, wherever latex will place them the alternative is having 1 figure for all images but still use \clearpage