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Is it possible for floats (the figure environment) appear out of order? In my case I have a figure that takes up a whole page, followed quickly by one that is maybe a third of the page. If they are both called on page 1, the whole-page figure appears on page 2, and the smaller figure appears on page 3, long after I've stopped referencing it. I'd like to the smaller figure to appear on page 1 if adequate room exists.

Jon Arnold
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    anything is possible but basically no. The number is already typeset in the box at the point the figure is encoutered so you really can't re-number them. Printing them out of order is possible but the entire float mechanism is designed to keep floats in order. The simplest way would be to put one in a figure and one in a table but use \captionof{figure} instead of \caption then they can float past each other. (capt-of or caption packages for \captionof) – David Carlisle Jun 18 '21 at 22:21
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    why can't you simply move the smaller figure in the source to be first? – David Carlisle Jun 18 '21 at 22:23
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    To familiarize yourself with LaTeX's float placement algorithm, you may want to consult the posting How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX? and especially Frank Mittelbach's answer. – Mico Jun 18 '21 at 22:26
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    Or you can define a different type of float, say bigfigure, but then they needs to be numbered differently. I have somewhere figure for my exams and extrafigure for when I typeset the solution... – Rmano Jun 19 '21 at 07:56
  • Somewhat related, but overkill: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/230152/float-placement-on – John Kormylo Jun 19 '21 at 15:38
  • Thanks for the responses. I want the larger figure first because it comes first in the document I'm describing (a piece of music). I'll try the \captionof option, thanks! – Jon Arnold Jun 19 '21 at 17:18
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    I don't understand your comment, you say you want the larger figure first but the question is all about making the smaller one come first isn't it? – David Carlisle Jun 19 '21 at 22:57
  • I meant that I refer to the larger figure first in the text, so it makes sense for it to have the lower figure number. I could put the definition for the smaller figure first, but the numbering would be odd. – Jon Arnold Jun 22 '21 at 18:18

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