[Tex/LaTex] How to get rid of the LaTeX warning: Float too large for page

captionsfloatswarnings

In my document, I have figures that have a rather long caption. The code I use to include them looks like this:

\begin{figure}
  \begin{center}
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{../fig.pdf}
    \caption[Short caption]{Fairly long text...}
  \end{center}
\end{figure}

For some of the figures, I keep getting warnings like this one:

LaTeX Warning: Float too large for page by 2.38557pt on input line 339.

I can't see anything wrong with the figures in the output document, but it makes the compilation output harder to read because it is full of such warnings.

What am I doing wrong, and how can I get rid of these warnings?

Best Answer

The warnings tell you that the float (figure and caption) are too long for staying in a page. You will get rid of many of those warnings if you avoid the center environment:

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{../fig.pdf}
  \caption[Short caption]{Fairly long text...}
\end{figure}

(it should be avoided anyway, see Should I use center or centering for figures and tables?).

For pretty high figures you might also want to shorten their width, say 0.95\textwidth or less. LaTeX won't apply such a transformation for you: the warning simply tells that a float needs attention, but how to solve the problem depends on factors that only a human can evaluate properly.

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