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This is maybe a soft question, but I think it is still relevant to proper typesetting with LaTeX.

I have a float with two or more tables. Should this be a figure or a table?

What if I have an arrow from one table to another, indicating some relation between the two tables?

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    Why should it be considered as a figure? A table is a table... If you include an image of table it is logically a table still...
    – user31729
    Commented Mar 12, 2017 at 15:12
  • 2
    If they are still tables, call them table(s). But if you only want to figure the relation between the tables, call them a figure.
    – Schweinebacke
    Commented Mar 12, 2017 at 15:13
  • I don't see why this got put on hold as opinion based, the posted (and accepted) answer only discusses facts about the latex float implementation. (@Schweinebacke)
    – David Carlisle
    Commented Mar 14, 2017 at 16:35
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    ...I still think this is opinion-based.
    – Werner ♦
    Commented Mar 14, 2017 at 22:20
  • @DavidCarlisle IMHO the OP already recognized that figure can contain not only images and table can contain not only tabulars. So IMHO the question does not discuss facts about the float implementation but opinions. BTW: Otherwise it would be a duplicate, e.g., of tex.stackexchange.com/questions/187512/… and should be closed too. Nevertheless, this is my opinion. You have the power to have another one.
    – Schweinebacke
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 8:56

1 Answer 1

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The important distinction between figure and table is not the content. You can put a tabular in a figure or \includegraphics in a table. The important distinction is that LaTeX keeps all floats of the same class in order.

So while (using caption package) you can put a table in a figure environment and give it a table caption with \captionof{table}{Zzzz} the typesetting of the tabular-in-figure will be just as if you had used table but LaTeX will not ensure that it stays in sequence with table environments, so it may be that if floats past a table meaning table 1 gets typeset on a later page than table 2.

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