82

If I want to put two images beside each other, what should I do? I have inserted a figure. But, rather than having the next figure on a new line, I want it to be beside the already inserted figure. How can I do that?

3

6 Answers 6

181

Actually there are a number of ways of achieving what you are asking for.


Without Using Any Package

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[!tbp]
  \centering
  \begin{minipage}[b]{0.4\textwidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{flower1.jpg}
    \caption{Flower one.}
  \end{minipage}
  \hfill
  \begin{minipage}[b]{0.4\textwidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{flower2.jpg}
    \caption{Flower two.}
  \end{minipage}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

enter image description here


Using Packages

You can use either subfig or subcaption.

Using subfig

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{subfig}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[!tbp]
  \centering
  \subfloat[Flower one.]{\includegraphics[width=0.4\textwidth]{flower1.jpg}\label{fig:f1}}
  \hfill
  \subfloat[Flower two.]{\includegraphics[width=0.4\textwidth]{flower2.jpg}\label{fig:f2}}
  \caption{My flowers.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Using subcaption

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[!tbp]
  \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.4\textwidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{flower1.jpg}
    \caption{Flower one.}
    \label{fig:f1}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.4\textwidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{flower2.jpg}
    \caption{Flower two.}
    \label{fig:f2}
  \end{subfigure}
  \caption{My flowers.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

enter image description here


Pros and Cons of the Approaches

  1. It is actually difficult to call one method superior over the other. Which one you want to use will depend on the result you are expecting. So, see the results presented above and choose yourself.
  2. The first one which uses the minipage environment is actually very simple. But as you can see the figures are number individually. If want to present a group of related figures, it may not be the one you are looking for.
  3. The results from subfig and subcaption are very similar. Though each has its own way of usage. However, there are reports on subfig not working properly with hyperref. This question provides an excellent discussion on the comparative analysis on subcaption vs. subfig.

Further Reading

In order to get a better understanding of the placement and width controlling issues, I strongly suggest the you go through the documentation of the above two packages (subfig and subcaption). These documentations contain some excellent hints and examples.

Also, for comprehending the solutions of related issues, these questions (A, B, C, D, E, F) are worth taking a look at.

9
  • 1
    Could you provide the pros and cons for each option? Or they are exactly identical? Dec 5, 2013 at 7:28
  • 1
    @DonutE.Knot Updated my answer. Thanks for pointing out the issue, that helped me make my answer better.
    – Masroor
    Dec 5, 2013 at 10:33
  • (+1) great answer. You can also use floatrow for this task. Can be a bit painful but helps a lot if you have special needs in caption positioning.
    – masu
    Dec 5, 2013 at 17:05
  • Note that blank lines before or after the \hfill will break the layout.
    – V02460
    Nov 2, 2017 at 16:27
  • For the first method, how to vertically space them more apart? When adding more subfigures until they move into the next row, what happens is there is no space between them and it looks awkward.
    – PlsWork
    Dec 6, 2017 at 21:06
20

These solutions are too complicated IMHO, you don't need to install any new packages.

\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\includegraphics[scale=1]{Figures/Race.png}
&
\includegraphics[scale=0.4]{Figures/Bearing.png}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Left: Diagram of angular contact bearing \cite{NBCBearing}. 
Right: Disassembled bearing}
\label{Fig:Race}
\end{figure}
1
  • 6
    Welcome to the site! To be fair, half the solutions above do not require any extra packages beyond graphicx. You could note that with p columns one can also add captions for each image, if desired. Aug 21, 2015 at 6:16
8

The MWE package offers a nice solution:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mwe}% or load ’graphicx’ and ’blindtext’ manually
\begin{document}
\blindtext
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=.48\linewidth]{example-image-a}\hfill
\includegraphics[width=.48\linewidth]{example-image-b}
\caption{MWE to demonstrate how to place to images side-by-side}
\end{figure}
\blindtext
\end{document}
2
  • Insted of beside each other I want to put many figure back to back in different pages, then what should I do ? Aug 6, 2015 at 6:29
  • This should be the correct answer.
    – Doc
    Jan 24 at 15:08
0

The conflict with subfig and \hyperref does exist: it's not just a rumor, which is why I prefer subcaption as I almost invariably need hyperref.

Also, \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.475\textwidth} should give a cleaner finish, still with plenty of space between the figures.

Place:

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption} 

in the preamble.

0
0

I would recommend using the tikz package. this answers your question in the most basic form, with for instance:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \node [anchor=north west] (imgA) at (.05\linewidth, .050\linewidth){\includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{figA.pdf}};
    \node [anchor=north west] (imgB) at (.05\linewidth, .500\linewidth){\includegraphics[width=.\linewidth]{figB.pdf}};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

One advantage is that you can place any number of figure, but also place easily letters to identify the figures:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \node [anchor=north west] (imgA) at (.05\linewidth, .050\linewidth){\includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{figA.pdf}};
    \draw [anchor=north west] (0., .000\linewidth) node {(A)};
    \node [anchor=north west] (imgB) at (.05\linewidth, .500\linewidth){\includegraphics[width=.\linewidth]{figB.pdf}};
    \draw [anchor=north west] (0., .500\linewidth) node {(A)};
\end{figure}

\end{document}

An example of use can be found in this paper's LaTeX code, at page 4 of the PDF:

Figure 1

You may need to tune the position of each object manually to get the appropriate result.

-1

Not an exact solution, but a workaround. I wasn't happy with how much blank space Latex allowed between the two images. So I copied both images into MS word (or Google Docs), arranged them side-by-side, and used the Snipping Tool to create a "single" picture. What's seen below is a single .png file which is much easier to insert.

enter image description here

3
  • 9
    If the original pictures are vector graphics, then converting to a bitmap like PNG would decrease image quality. Jul 19, 2016 at 16:44
  • 1
    this solution can be improved: instead of using pixel based image editors, it is better to use vector based image editors. My suggestion is to use LibreOffice Draw and save the image as PDF
    – Sadegh
    Jan 1, 2017 at 15:49
  • 4
    LaTeX can do virtually whatever you instruct it to do, you needn't use any third-party software to achieve what you want in LaTeX. Blank space, alignment, size, etc. can all be adjusted from within LaTeX quite easily.
    – AboAmmar
    Sep 22, 2017 at 6:57

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