Place group of text and image on same exported PDF page

Question

I am new to Tex and this question maybe is not written well, so I will try to explain it better.

I am writing a reference manual where there are a lot of "blocks" that all have the same structure: a piece of text (maybe one or two short paragraphs) and then an image (tipically a screenshot).

I would like to be able to define such a block in a way that, when exporting document to PDF, the output is on the same page. I understand that there will be some pages half-filled when this "block" begins and does not fit into the current page. In these cases, I expect the block to be placed entirely at the next page.

I have been playing with \begin{samepage}, \begin{minipage} and things like that (searching a lot in this same web) with no luck. Obviously I am doing something wrong, or taking a bad approach to solve the problem.

Take a look at my code:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Phasellus leo ipsum, dictum non auctor quis, euismod vitae enim. Mauris varius.

\begin{figure}[h]
  \begin{center} \includegraphics[scale={0.7}]{IMG1} \end{center}
  \caption{Image caption}
  \label{fig:IMG1}
\end{figure}

I would like all this piece of text (2 paragraphs) and one figure to be always in the same page.

Can this be achieved? In fact I thought I got it when I discovered \begin{minipage}! If this is the case, can you please write down a short code showing how to use it? (remember I am a newbie and some obvious things are not so obvious for me right now).

Edit: I will try @Werner tip, but I am already using a \newcommand to short all the previously written \begin{figure} environment. As this:

\newcommand{\figureSF}[4]{
  \begin{figure}[h]
    \begin{center} \includegraphics[scale={#4}]{#1} \end{center}
    \caption{#2}
\label{#3}
\end{figure}
}

So the previous piece of code turns into:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Phasellus leo ipsum, dictum non auctor quis, euismod vitae enim. Mauris varius.

\figureSF{IMG1}{Image caption}{fig:IMG1}{0.7}

As this new command accept only 4 parameters, is there an easy way to modify it to handle the situation you are describing?

Answer 1

It seems like you're writing a bunch of text and then inbetween there are these "blocks" that you want to be "kept together." For this, seeing as you currently already use a figure environment for the image, you can include the paragraph text within your figure. TeX does not care what's containing inside the environment - it could be a table, an image, some text, whatever. Here's a small example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}% http://ctan.org/pkg/lipsum
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}% http://ctan.org/pkg/graphicx
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-2]
\begin{figure}
  \hrulefill\par
  \lipsum[3-4]
  \centering\includegraphics[scale={0.7}]{IMG1}
  \caption{Some caption}\label{fig:label1}
  \hrulefill
\end{figure}
\lipsum[5-6]
\lipsum[7-8]
\begin{figure}
  \hrulefill\par
  \lipsum[9-10]
  \centering\includegraphics[scale={0.7}]{IMG2}
  \caption{Some other caption}\label{fig:label2}
  \hrulefill
\end{figure}
\lipsum[11-12]
\end{document}​

I've added an \hrulefill above and below the floating "block" to make it clear that the text content floats with the image. Also, the [demo] option to graphicx is just for this example since I don't have the images you mention/use.

Note that all float-related restrictions (and benefits!) pertain to this usage. For example, the portion of text/float allowed at the top/bottom of a page, etc. More on this is available from the layouts package documentation (section 6 Float layouts, p 21).

In terms of the figure placement, see How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX? (and Keeping tables/figures close to where they are mentioned).

Bundling this into a single command is also possible:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}% http://ctan.org/pkg/lipsum
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}% http://ctan.org/pkg/graphicx
\newcommand{\figureSF}[5]{%
  \begin{figure}[ht]
    \hrulefill\par
    #1\par\bigskip
    \centering\includegraphics[scale=#5]{#2}
    \caption{#3}\label{#4}
    \hrulefill
  \end{figure}
}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-2]
\figureSF{\lipsum[3-4]}{IMG1}{Some caption}{fig:label1}{0.7}
\lipsum[5-6]
\lipsum[7-8]
\figureSF{\lipsum[9-10]}{IMG2}{Some other caption}{fig:label2}{0.7}
\lipsum[11-12]
\end{document}​