How can I modify vertical space between figure and caption?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[draft]{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\setlength\fboxsep{124pt}
\setlength\fboxrule{1pt}
\fbox{\includegraphics{dummy}}
\caption{Dummy caption}
\end{figure}
\end{document}


How can I increase vertical space between figure and caption?

3 Answers

Modify the lengths \abovecaptionskip and \belowcaptionskip (in the document preamble) to suit your needs:

\setlength{\abovecaptionskip}{15pt plus 3pt minus 2pt} % Chosen fairly arbitrarily


The default values are 10pt and 0pt. (The plus and minus allows the space to stretch and shrink if needed. The numbers specify how much.)

• What does plus 3pt minus 2pt stand for? – Ichibann Feb 27 '12 at 15:11
• @Ichibann: plus and minus allow the space to stretch and shrink if needed. The numbers specify how much. – Andrey Vihrov Feb 27 '12 at 15:15
• Where do I put this line of code? – LWZ Sep 7 '13 at 23:27
• @AndreyVihrov: Correct be if I'm wrong, but it seems like you can place this line inside the float (e.g. figure) and then it will affect only this given float. – Dror Feb 4 '14 at 20:57
• @AndreyVihrov When you say "The default values are 10pt and 0pt.", do you mean 10pt plus 0pt or either 10pt or 0pt. The reason being, something unknown is causing my \belowcaptionskip to equal 0pt. This is undesired. I have caption loaded. – Jonathan Komar Dec 1 '16 at 10:19

\vspace*{-10mm} placed before \caption command does the trick. Just pick the number that works for you the best.

• welcome, maybe using package caption would be a better approach? A global definition is almost always better than setting stuff by hand. – Johannes_B Aug 17 '15 at 23:27
• Thanks, this worked great for me! I needed to tweak the distance of a single figure, which on the bottom has only a thin, vertical line. This line caused the bulk of the figure to move too far up. In my experience, these sort of cases are best solved locally with small hacks like this. – Martin J.H. Jan 2 '16 at 21:58
• This works great if you want to configure only one figure. The accpepted answer will adjust all figures in your document. – 2523fewqf23f Jun 28 at 19:37

You can use the caption package for this:

\usepackage[skip=2pt]{caption} % example skip set to 2pt


This will effect all figures.

The documentation says:

The vertical space between the caption and the figure or table contents is controlled by the option skip=amount. The standard LATEX document classes article, report and book preset it to skip=10pt, but other document classes may use a different amount.