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On some pages of my document LaTeX introduces a lot of spacing between my headline/paragraphs (around 5 times more than usual).

What is the reason for this and how can I avoid it? It seems it is trying to fill the page until the next chapter starts.

Mensch
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John Smith
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    Welcome to TeX.sx! Please add a minimal working example (MWE) that illustrates your problem. – Corentin Oct 17 '12 at 15:41
  • This is usually because of stretching of the page. But with out more details it is hard to say what is going on in your particular case. Is a large piece of math moved to the next page? – daleif Oct 17 '12 at 15:44
  • @daleif I suspect usage of \begin{figure}[H] which is a common source for these problems. – egreg Oct 17 '12 at 16:08
  • @egreg yes, I used \begin{figure}[H] and also used H for positioning my tables. Are there any alternatives to H when I want to have my images placed after a particular paragraph? What is wrong with it? – John Smith Oct 17 '12 at 16:24
  • @Corentin + daleif I found this post after searching for "stretching" thanks. It describes my problem and also comes up with a solution. – John Smith Oct 17 '12 at 16:27
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    @JohnSmith The wrong with [H] is that there is no flexibility in the page. You can't fit a 4 inch high figure if there's only two inch space available, so the whole figure will go to the next page, leaving the two inches for the other spaces on the page to stretch (assuming \flushbottom is in force). – egreg Oct 17 '12 at 17:17

1 Answers1

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Probably you are using \flushbottom or a document class that uses this as default (book). This usually happens, if there are large objects (figures, images, tables) that do not float and TeX cannot break them accordingly. Then the large object has to be moved to the next page and the previous page is stretched to obey \flushbottom.

If you have many non-floating objects, then \raggedbottom helps. It probably hurts less than the overstretched pages. But consider floating objects (figure, table without h). Then the text area isn't too much interrupted, it is easier for TeX to break the pages and \flushbottom can be kept that means opposite pages have the same bottom border.

Heiko Oberdiek
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