In the following MWE (screenshot below) I create two panels of 6 figures (2 rows 3 columns):
Arranging the figures outside of a minipage, I can control the vertical separation with my custom command ``LineSep''
Arranging the figures inside of a minipage, I can't seem to control the vertical separation with my custom command ``LineSep'', it ends up being applied outside the minipage.
I've seen other examples use \vspace*{}
inside of minipages so I am not sure how to get this capability back so I can control my figure spacing inside my minipage.
Note: for the purpose of this MWE, tikz functions that overlay the sub figure labels A-F have been removed as the spacing issue persists independently of a custom include graphics function with tikz overlays.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xparse} % can exclude expl3, xparse loads it
\usepackage{xpatch} % can exclude etoolbox, xpatch loads it
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[format=hang,singlelinecheck=0,font={sf,small},labelfont=bf]{subfig}
%http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/75014/is-it-possible-to-make-a-reference-to-a-subfigure-to-appear-figure-2a-with-cle
\captionsetup[subfigure]{subrefformat=simple,labelformat=simple,listofformat=subsimple}
\renewcommand\thesubfigure{\Alph{subfigure}}
\pagestyle{empty}
\DeclareDocumentCommand{\LineSep}{ O{-0.45} }
{%
\\\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace*{15 mm}%
}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\begin{center}%
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.3\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.3\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.3\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\LineSep
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.3\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.3\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.3\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\caption[NO FIGURE LEGEND EXPECTED]{%
\label{fig:2}
General summary statement / figure title:
With a small caption here describing the content of (A) through to (F).
}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}
\begin{center}%
\begin{minipage}{0.32\textwidth}
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.99\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\LineSep
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.99\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\end{minipage}\hspace{1 mm}
\begin{minipage}{0.32\textwidth}
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.99\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\LineSep
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.99\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\end{minipage}\hspace{1 mm}
\begin{minipage}{0.32\textwidth}
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.99\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\LineSep
\subfloat{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio,width=0.99\textwidth]{example-image-a}}
\end{minipage}
\caption[NO FIGURE LEGEND EXPECTED]{%
\label{fig:1}
General summary statement / figure title:
With a small caption here describing the content of (A) through to (F).
}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
\end{document}