Rotating figures to point to the outside edge

Question

I am writing my thesis in LaTeX book style. I have a large figure that I want to rotate to make it viewable sideways. I can do this with the includegraphics option angle=90.

My question: Is there a way to automatically rotate through -90 degrees on even pages and 90 degrees on odd pages so that the lower edge of the figure is always at the outside edge of the book page?

Answer 1

Use the rotating package and its sidewaysfigure environment. (The following example must be compiled two times for correct rotation on even/odd pages.)

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{rotating}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\chapter{foo}

\lipsum[1-6]

\begin{sidewaysfigure}
\centering
{\Huge (Picture)}
\caption{A figure}
\end{sidewaysfigure}

\begin{sidewaysfigure}
\centering
{\Huge (Picture)}
\caption{Another figure}
\end{sidewaysfigure}

\lipsum[7-12]

\end{document}