# How to get information about remaining free space?

following scenario: I want to automatically generate a newsletter with some small articles, which is working fine. (I am generating LaTeX-code with data from a small database). But now I want to include some images to fill the space left (I want to have entirely filled pages), but I don't want to get more pages than needed for the articles.

So: is there a way to check with LaTeX, if there is space left on the last page and how much?

I hope you can understand what I mean.

I think you could use \pagetotal for this. Subtract it from \textheight to get the amount of space remaining.

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\newdimen\spaceleft
\spaceleft=\textheight
\multiply\spaceleft by -1
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-3]
\multiply\spaceleft by -1
\typeout{Space on last page:}
\showthe\spaceleft
\end{document}


The result of this is:

Space on last page:

204.0pt.

• Instead of multiplying something by -1 twice you can simply write \advance\spaceleft by-\pagetotal. – wipet Jun 5 '17 at 8:40

A nicer way to realise Ian Thompsons answer is to simply use \dimexpr rather than multiplying by -1 and adding the lengths:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-3]

\newdimen\spaceleft
\spaceleft=\dimexpr\textheight-\pagetotal\relax

Remaining space (above this line):
\the\spaceleft
\end{document}

• Well, this code snippet doesn't suffice (Ian Thompson's does). Please add the missing parts. – TeXnician Jun 5 '17 at 7:36
• \dimexpr belongs to e-TeX extensions. That's why hoop jumping might be necessary for some plain TeX users. – percusse Jun 5 '17 at 8:53
• @percusse But the question was about LaTeX not plainTeX. – Schweinebacke Jun 5 '17 at 9:18