[Tex/LaTex] Two figures side-by-side with inequal height and aligned captions

captionsfloatsvertical alignment

I have an addition to this question: Two figures side by side.

Suppose we have two pictures, making them of uneven height. I am looking for a way to not use subfig and align two figures side-by-side, while keeping the captions vertically aligned.

I've created the following example:

\documentclass{article}
\title{Two Figures Side by Side}
\author{Little Bobby Tables}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newcommand{\exedout}{
\begin{tikzpicture}
\path node (LL) {}
    ++ (0.8\textwidth, 0.8\textheight) node (UR) {}
    (LL -| UR) node (LR) {}
    (LL |- UR) node (UL) {};
\draw (LL) rectangle (UR) (LL) -- (UR) (UL) -- (LR);
\end{tikzpicture}
}

\newcommand{\exedouttwo}{
\begin{tikzpicture}
\path node (LL) {}
    ++ (0.8\textwidth, 0.4\textheight) node (UR) {}
    (LL -| UR) node (LR) {}
    (LL |- UR) node (UL) {};
\draw (LL) rectangle (UR) (LL) -- (UR) (UL) -- (LR);
\end{tikzpicture}
}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
How can I put two figures side-by-side? Not two sub-figures, but two actual figures
with separate "Fig.: bla bla" captions. A figure is supposed to spread over the
entire text width, but I have two figures which are narrow and long, and I need to
save the space in order to withstand the pages limit.

\lipsum

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{minipage}{0.45\textwidth}
\centering\exedout
\caption{first figure but with more comments than the second picture to see what the different is.}
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}{0.45\textwidth}
\centering\exedouttwo
\caption{second figure}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}

\lipsum

\end{document}

It gives the following result:

wrong alignment

But I need this:

right alignment

Best Answer

Use the [t] optional argument of minipage to align both to the top baseline (i.e. the image baseline / lower line). I also added %s to your macros to avoid extra spaces being inserted by the source code line breaks.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newcommand{\exedout}{%
\begin{tikzpicture}
\path node (LL) {}
    ++ (0.8\textwidth, 0.8\textheight) node (UR) {}
    (LL -| UR) node (LR) {}
    (LL |- UR) node (UL) {};
\draw (LL) rectangle (UR) (LL) -- (UR) (UL) -- (LR);
\end{tikzpicture}%
}

\newcommand{\exedouttwo}{%
\begin{tikzpicture}
\path node (LL) {}
    ++ (0.8\textwidth, 0.4\textheight) node (UR) {}
    (LL -| UR) node (LR) {}
    (LL |- UR) node (UL) {};
\draw (LL) rectangle (UR) (LL) -- (UR) (UL) -- (LR);
\end{tikzpicture}%
}
\begin{document}
How can I put two figures side-by-side? Not two sub-figures, but two actual figures
with separate "Fig.: bla bla" captions. A figure is supposed to spread over the
entire text width, but I have two figures which are narrow and long, and I need to
save the space in order to withstand the pages limit.

\lipsum

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.45\textwidth}
\centering\exedout
\caption{first figure but with more comments than the second picture to see what the different is.}
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.45\textwidth}
\centering\exedouttwo
\caption{second figure}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}

\lipsum

\end{document}
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