\centerline{} command alternative?

Question

I am adding figures to a work and most of the figures are too wide and are thus not centered but are shifted to the right. I searched here and found a solution, that would consist in adding the \centerline{} command into the figure environment. This work fine for figures added with the command \includegraphics{}, like in this example:

\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\centerline{\includegraphics{SOIR_optics}}
\end{center} % is this really useful?
\end{figure}

But when I try to add a tikzpicture instead, this solution does not work (see example)

\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\centerline{\begin{tikzpicture} 
some code 
\end{tikzpicture}}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

My question is : are there alternatives to this \centerline{} command?

Thanks!

Is your picture wider than the margins of the page? – Joseph Wright Mar 04 '14 at 08:23 — Joseph Wright, Mar 04 '14 at 08:23

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 04 '14 at 08:20

16

The \centerline command should never be used in a LaTeX document (unless you know precisely what you're doing, and probably only in the preamble for some definition). Use

\begin{figure}[htp]
\centering

<whatever>

\end{figure}

and <whatever> (a graphic, a TikZ picture or anything) will be centered.

answered Mar 04 '14 at 08:20

egreg

1,121,712

5

This does not work for figures slightly larger than the margins :/ – mwoua Mar 04 '14 at 08:39
@mwoua Why don't you simply scale down the image to fit the textwidth? That would make more sense... – jub0bs Mar 04 '14 at 08:57
1

If I scale it down, some details could be unreadable. – mwoua Mar 04 '14 at 09:00
@mwoua: of course that depends on how do you perform the scaling; without details is impossible to say more. – Claudio Fiandrino Mar 04 '14 at 09:20
1

@mwoua If you need that, enclose the object to be scaled in \makebox[\columnwidth]{...} – egreg Mar 04 '14 at 09:26
3

@egreg, If I'm not so wrong (actually I'm almost certain), you mentioned not to use \centerline in an other question as well. What is so devil about it? – Pouya Mar 04 '14 at 17:22
@egreg, How would you solve http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/8610/how-to-center-large-figures-in-latex-and-how-to-fix-short-justified-lines without \centerline? – Royi Feb 23 '17 at 14:01
@Royi \makebox[\textwidth]{...} – egreg Feb 23 '17 at 15:03
@Pouya https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/311293/centerline-ignores-page-margin – aidangallagher4 Jan 10 '24 at 16:04

score 4 · Answer 2 · 2014-03-04T09:30:59.810

You can use adjustbox

\documentclass{scrreprt}
\usepackage[export]{adjustbox}  %%  export option makes adjustbox --
                                %%  -- goodies available inside includegraphics command
\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}
X\hrulefill X
\begin{figure}[htp]
\includegraphics[width=1.1\textwidth,center]{example-image-a}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

enter image description here

This is very useful for figures that are wider than \textwidth. Another useful macro will be adjustbox environment with max width option.

\documentclass{scrreprt}
\usepackage[export]{adjustbox}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}
X\hrulefill X

This is resized to \verb|1.1\textwidth|
\begin{figure}[htp]
\begin{adjustbox}{center,max width=1.1\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=1.2\textwidth,center]{example-image-a}
\end{adjustbox}
\end{figure}
\clearpage
The following is not resized:
\begin{figure}[htp]
\begin{adjustbox}{center,max width=1.1\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth,center]{example-image-b}
\end{adjustbox}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

enter image description here

The advantage of max width is that the content is resized only if it exceeds the max width otherwise not.

With tikzpicture environment

I assume that your tikz picture are saved as separate files. Then using adjustbox and tikzscale packages:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx,tikz,tikzscale}
\usepackage{adjustbox}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{myfig.tikz}
\begin{tikzpicture}[inner sep=0pt, outer sep=0pt]
    \draw[use as bounding box](-20,-20) rectangle (20,20);
    \node at (0,0) (A) {A};
    \node[above right] (B) at (A.north east) {B};
    \draw (A.south west)--(B.north east);
  \end{tikzpicture}
\end{filecontents*}

\begin{document}
X\hrulefill X

This is resized to \verb|1.1\textwidth|
\begin{figure}[htp]
\begin{adjustbox}{max width=1.1\textwidth,center}
\includegraphics[width=1.2\textwidth]{myfig.tikz}
\end{adjustbox}
\end{figure}
\clearpage
The following is not resized:
\begin{figure}[htp]
\begin{adjustbox}{max width=1.1\textwidth,center}
\includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{myfig.tikz}
\end{adjustbox}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Thanks ! This works for \includegraphics. But for a tikzpicture environment? — mwoua, Mar 04 '14 at 09:16
@mwoua You can use tikzscale package. Give me a minute. I will provide an example. — , Mar 04 '14 at 09:19
I will not use it now but I keep it in mind. Thank you so much for your answer! — mwoua, Mar 04 '14 at 09:33

\centerline{} command alternative?

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