Placing an image with caption at the bottom of the page in XeLaTeX?

Question

I need to create a figure an place it at the bottom of the page (figure includes the image and some caption text). Is there a way to do it?

I tired using figure environment, but it sends my image all the way to the end of the document.

MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}

\usepackage{xltxtra}
\setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Times New Roman}
\usepackage[russian]{babel} % for russian hypenation

\begin{document}

\pagebreak
\section*{\centering Методика}

  Some text.

  \begin{figure}[b]
    \centering
      \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{labyrinth.png}
  \end{figure}

  Some more text.

\pagebreak
\section*{\centering Результаты}


\end{document}

The figure ends up being stuffed on the very last page.

I'm using XeTeX 3.1415926-2.2-0.9995.2 (TeX Live 2009/Debian).

Answer 1

You have missed adding graphicx. Also you better use fontenc for better results. Here is the working MWE: (I can't use russian, so I used english)

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx} %Remove demo in your file
\usepackage{xltxtra}
\usepackage{lipsum} % for dummy text
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} 
\setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Times New Roman}
%\usepackage[russian]{babel} % for russian hypenation
%
\begin{document}
%
\pagebreak
\section*{A section} % Don't use \centering inside a section.
%
\lipsum[1]
%
  \begin{figure}[b]
    \centering
      \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{labyrinth.png}
  \end{figure}

\lipsum[5-10]
%
\pagebreak
\section*{another section}
%   
\end{document}

Answer 2

If you try the following document

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Times New Roman}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage{russian} % for russian hyphenation
\usepackage{kantlipsum}

\begin{document}

\section*{Методика}

  Some text.

  \begin{figure}[b]
    \centering
      \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{labyrinth.png}
  \end{figure}

  Some more text.

\kant

\section*{Результаты}


\end{document}

you'll see that the figure is at the bottom. Setting figures where we want they to be requires a bit of white magic (shifting the code up one paragraph sometimes help). In your example the figure is actually at the bottom, but the \pagebreak command made the bottom to be just below the figure because the article class issues \raggedbottom.

Using Babel for Russian with XeLaTeX can't be recommended (try and write \tableofcontents to see why). The xltxtra package is by no means necessary and simply fontspec is usually better.

Note that kantlipsum and the demo option to graphicx are only for demonstration purposes.

Answer 3

You haven't told us how tall the figure is, but I have a hunch that its height is greater than 0.3\textheight. My hunch is based on your remarks that (i) LaTeX places the float in question at the very end of the document and (ii) you've specified the b (and only the b, right?) placement directive.

LaTeX has a parameter named \bottomfraction, which is set to 0.3\textheight initially; what this means is that LaTeX will only place a float in the b (bottom) position of a page if the float's height is no larger than, you guessed it, 0.3\textheight. If your figure's height is indeed greater than this default parameter value and if you've specified the b placement directive, LaTeX can't place the float on the page in question and, as a result, will keep deferring placement of the float until either the very end of the document is reached or until a \clearpage instruction is encountered (whichever comes first).

Assuming that the height of the figure is indeed greater than 30% of the height of the text block, you may want to add the following instruction to your document's preamble:

\renewcommand\bottomfraction{0.7} % same value as `\topfraction`...

and recompile your LaTeX file. Happy TeXing!