[pdftex] placing graphics in latex in exactly a given position in the text

[Robin Fairbairns]

Alessandro Bernardini <alessandro.bernardini.1979 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry that I disturb you; I have following question:

you should be sorry: it's not a pdftex question at all, it's a general
latex question.

try texhax or comp.text.tex

  http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=maillists

> how can i force latex to place a graphic (figure in a pdf file) exactly in a
> given position, before the text continues ?
> 
> with the command
> \begin{figure*}[h]
> \includegraphics{myfigure.pdf}
> \end[figure*}
> 
> written text.
> 
> it can happens that "written text" is displayed before teh figure, who is
> displayed in the next page.
> I want the figure exactly before "written text", even when a pagebreak
> occurs.
> 
> The figure should not be numbered (figure*).

figure* says the figure is to be the full width of a double-column page;
the only valid placement options are "p" and "t" -- your "h" is being
silently ignored.

(figure numbering is controlled by the caption -- indeed, the figure
environment is no more than a container; you can put a tabular in there,
with no comeback.)

see http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=floats for more on
getting the thing to behave (the next release of the faq has clarified
that answer, but i think it's possible to work from what's on the web
now).