[Tex/LaTex] Full-width figures with Pandoc

markdownpandoctwo-columnwide-image

I want to produce a figure which spans both columns in a two column layout document, exactly as discussed here: Displaying a wide figure in a two-column document

I'm writing in Markdown and using Pandoc to convert to Latex, and then to PDF (I like to have the .tex intermediate step so that I can see exactly how my work is typeset). I haven't been able to find a way of telling Pandoc to produce a full width image either by using the starred figure environment (as discussed in the afore-linked thread) or by some other mechanism.

I can achieve my desired result by manually tweaking the Latex output by Pandoc to use figure*, but that's a bit of a pain as I have to repeat this (by hand) every time I compile a new version of my document from (the Markdown) source.

I could also achieve this by including the raw Latex code in my Markdown file, but I was hoping for a cleaner solution. However, this is what I will fall back to if nothing better is possible.

For completeness, here is the syntax I'm using to include the figure in my Markdown document.

![Figure caption](assets/my-figure.png){width=100%}

Best Answer

To date there is no pure pandoc solution to what you want. However, that may be easily achieved with custom filter. Chime in to pandoc-discuss and ask for help in building a filter for that.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Latex Figures appear before text in pandoc markdown

This is most likely because the figure environment floats, which is not what you're after. For this you have a couple of options:

Add the float package which provides the H float specifier, allowing you to use

\usepackage{float}% http://ctan.org/pkg/float
%...

\begin{figure}[H]
%...
\caption[<ToC>]{<regular>}
\end{figure}

stopping the float from moving around.

Add the caption (or the super-tiny capt-of) package and wrap your figure inside a minipage to keep the image and caption together. Use it as follows:

\usepackage{caption}% http://ctan.org/pkg/caption
%\usepackage{capt-of}% http://ctan.org/pkg/capt-of
%...

\noindent\begin{minipage}{\textwidth}
%...
\captionof{figure}[<ToC>]{<regular>}
\end{minipage}
%...

For more information on the placement of figures, 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.

The above proposals are purely LaTeX-driven.

If you want to manage this within pandoc, consider adding the following to a file called float_adjustment.tex and place it in your project folder:

\usepackage{float}
\floatplacement{figure}{H}

Then include this file as part of your preamble using the pandoc header

---
title: "A title"
author: "An author"
date: "`r format(Sys.time(), '%d %B %Y')`"
output:
  rmarkdown::pdf_document:
    fig_caption: yes        
    includes:  
      in_header: figure_placement.tex
---

All figures should be forced in-place via the [H]ERE float specification.

[Tex/LaTex] Latex default citation and bibliography style with Pandoc

After some more experiments and reading documentation I am pretty sure there is no way to avoid creating an intermediate Latex file if one wants to use native Latex citation and bibliography power.

The reason is with Pandoc we can apparently use one of two possible techniques to produce bibliographic references: Either CSL files (with the --csl setting) or Latex citations (with the --biblatex or --natbib settings). CSL files can be used with every output format, Latex citations can only be used if the output format is, well, Latex.

But why? Because when creating Latex output with the --biblatex or --natbib settings, Pandoc converts Markdown references like [@foo, p. 20] into Latex commands like \autocites[p. 20]{foo}. When converting the Latex file to PDF, these commands will be processed by pdflatex and thus produce the beautiful output I am looking for. Obviously, creating such Latex commands in any other output format would be rather vain.

When invoked with the --csl option, on the other hand, Pandoc directly converts Markdown references like the above into text like "(Knuth 1970, p. 20)", depending on the CSL style. This is actually pretty cool because that way the citations will be "hardcoded" and thus look like they are specified in the CSL file in every output format. The drawback is of course that if I do not find a CSL file that suits my needs, I have to go the Markdown -> Latex -> PDF way.

What still makes me wonder is why the --biblatex and --natbib settings cannot be used when creating PDF output. If I am not mistaken, Pandoc produces PDF via Latex anyway, so why not use the full power of Latex? But anyway, I think I can totally live with the way described in my question ;-)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Latex Figures appear before text in pandoc markdown

[Tex/LaTex] Latex default citation and bibliography style with Pandoc

Related Question