Nonfloating figure spanning two columns in multicol environment - layout

I am using the multicol package, with two columns, and need a figure to span both columns. I am aware of \begin{figure*}, but I do not want the figure to float. I have been googling for about an hour, to no avail. Any help would be great.

Have a look at the package nonfloat (it is part of TeXlive so there is a good chance you already have it). The following example taken from the manual of nonfloat shows how you can have a non-floating figure with caption:
\begin{minipage}{\linewidth}
\centering%
\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth,clip=]{input.eps}%
\figcaption{Caption}%
\label{fig:input.eps}%
\end{minipage}
The nonfloat package provides the \figcaption command that can be used outside floats. In order to combine this with multicol I think you have to \end{multicols}, put the figure, and then \begin{multicols}{2}.

Not completely off-topic, http://www.deesaster.org/latex-magazinerstellung.php has an example article showing how to make magazines with latex (see the example LaTeX-Magazinerstellung-Artikel.pdf) which uses multicol and has pictures spanning more than one column. This, I think, is interesting, unfortunately the source code and guide are in German, but I think he does it with a \parbox ...

Well, floating figures in LaTeX can be challenging... But as far as I remember, the core of it is that a figure always is floating and there is no way to change that other than not using a figure but includegraphics directly.
Having that said, chapter 9 "Floating tables and figures" in "Guide to LaTeX" mentions some things that might help you (listed in order mentioned):
\suppressfloats
package flafter
package float
package here
package floatflt

Related

How to specify the items in reference list using BibTeX? ChemPhysChem LaTeX requirement

I'm revising a manuscript for ChemPhysChem. They just provided a very simple templet here. However, I have some problems meeting the requirement:
Please follow our house style for references for example: [1] X. Y.
Name, A. B. Name, J. Abbr. 2016, 5, 111-120.
This kind of reference hides the title, and I can not find an existing style to meet the need.
I am using the following latex script:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[sorting=none, backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{ref_r.bib}
What do I need to do to solve the problem? Do I really need to build a new .bst file? Could anyone share their experience on submitting manuscripts on ChemPhysChem using LaTeX?
Don't use biblatex for journal submissions unless your publisher explicitly states that they do accept it. While it is a nice and flexible tool, biblatex is not yet the standard.
Just follow the instructions from the template and use
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%alternatively you may use
\bibliographystyle{unsrt}
\bibliography{mymanuscript.bib}
%and send the .bib file along with your manuscript
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Don't worry if the resulting style might be a bit different from their requirement, they won't use it anyway but convert your source files with their pipeline.
I changed to my latex using BibTeX back, and built a cpc.bst file for ChemPhysChem using the following command with the help of the youtube video:
latex makebst
It would not be that hard to create the bibliography style file using the guide of the above-mentioned video.
And the result looks like
this.

How to make a Pandoc table wider than textwidth?

I'm adding a table to a document and discovered that the columns are too narrow, making it a bit difficult to read. Therefore I'd like to make the entire table (and thus also the individual columns relative sizes) wider while keeping the textwidth of the rest of the document unchanged. Is it possible to do this using the Pandoc multi-line tables? Or do I need to use pure LaTeX for this table?
This is what the Pandoc markdown for my table looks like:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DSR Activity Description In this thesis
-------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Problem Identification & Motivation The specific research problem is defined, The research problem was initially defined by Simon Hacks
and the value of a solution is justified. and Robert Lagerström in a thesis proposal. The value of
the solution is that the produced artifact will establish
a foundation for further work in EAD detection and analysis.
2. Defining Objectives for a Solution The objectives of the solution are infered In order to determine the objectives of the solution the problem
from the problem definition and knowledge definition is examined.
about what is possible and feasible. This
might e.g. be a description of how the
artifact is expected to support solutions
to problems which have not yet been
addressed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And the resulting PDF (compiled simply using pandoc myfile.md -o myfile.pdf), where you can see that the table is only as wide as the textwidth:
In case it matters, I'm using
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
A crude but effective method is to widen the \columwidth just for the table. You'll probably want to change the \LTleft table margin, like so:
```{=latex}
\newlength{\extraspace}
\setlength\extraspace{4cm}
\setlength\columnwidth{\columnwidth + \extraspace}
\setlength\LTleft{-0.5\extraspace + \tabcolsep}
```
Table goes here
```{=latex}
% restore old columnwidth, table placement
\setlength\columnwidth{\linewidth - 4cm}
\LTleft=\fill
```
Result:
I ended up using this solution:
\usepackage[textwidth=12.1cm,textheight=22cm]{geometry}
...
\newgeometry{textwidth=18cm,textheight=22cm}
<!-- my table here -->
\restoregeometry

Accessing Area.Name Throws Error

I'm just trying to find a way to access the name property of an Area element inside Revit Python Shell, tried looking on Jeremy Tammik's amazingly informative blog, tried AUGI, Revit API docs, been looking for 2 days now...
Tried accessing via a bunch of ways, FilteredElementsCollector(doc).OfCategory(BuiltInCategory.OST_Areas), tried by Area class, tried through AreaTag, every single time I get an error under every circumstance and it's driving me nuts, it seems like such a simple issue that I can't seem to grasp!
EDIT: Also tried by element id, through tags, through area schemes, nada, no go...
Can anyone please tell me how to access this property via RPS?
I would say two things:
areaObject.LookupParameter("Name")
areaObject.GetParameters("Name")
...are valid methods. Please notice how I used GetParameters() NOT GetParameter(). There are some drawbacks to using either one of the two. The lookup method will return FIRST parameter that matches the name which in many cases might be a different parameter for different elements. It's not very reliable.
GetParameters() method will return them all if there are multiple so then you have to deal with a List<Parameter> rather than a single object that you can extract your value from.
I would personally recommend to use areaObject.get_Parameter(BuiltInParameter.ROOM_NAME) method to extract a Name value from Area object. The BuiltInParameter always points at the same parameter, and will reliably return just that one parameter. Here's a little more details about these methods:
http://www.revitapidocs.com/2018/4400b9f8-3787-0947-5113-2522ff5e5de2.htm
To answer my own question, I actually never thought of looking through the code of other Revit Python scripts... in this case of PyRevit, which is in my opinion far more eloquently written than RPS, raelly looking forward for their console work to be done!
Basically, I had mistakenly used GetParameter('parameter') instead of LookupParameter('parameter').
As I said, it was something stupidly simple that I just didn't understand.
If anyone has sufficient knowledge to coherently clarify this, please do answer!
Many thanks!
Maybe your issue is the same as this one ? :
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/RevitPythonShell/name|sort:relevance/revitpythonshell/uaxB1FLXG80/sdJNrTfoPuUJ
Your_Area.Name # throws error
Element.Name.GetValue(Your_Area) # works great

Using the "extends" functionality in drools spreadsheets?

I have a question about using a certian drools functionality in drools decision spreadsheet, that would help a lot in reducing the files and making them more readable.
I can't add more than two links so please downlad this .zip file that includes:
Version1.PNG, Version1.drl, Version2.PNG, Version2.drl, Version3desired.drl
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=89653236807266194978
So here is the sample rule that we are using right now (something similar)Version1.PNG
And this when converted to a drl gives us the following 193 line long drl file. (Version1.drl)
It is ok and it works well, but after some research we found out we could use the "extends" functionality in drl.
And it works in a drl, what I would like to know is how would I use it in an Excel spreadsheet?
I designed the rule in this way: Version2.PNG
Clearly this is not how "extends" should be used in Excel, since this returns the following drl (Version2.drl)
You can see the extends is inside the "" of the rule name. Makes sense I guess, what I woudl like to know however is, how would I use it correctly? a seperate column? That didn't work, at least not the way I did it.
Does anyone know how It should be done?
The correct DRL that should be made after the Excel is converted is this: (Version3desired.drl)
Thank you for any help :)
Cheers!
There is no gain in using extends with spreadsheets in the way you describe it in your question.
I suggest that you stick to the spreadsheet layout shown in Version1.png. If data entry personnel complains about the dull repetition of 1/7/30 in oodles of rows, teach them how to join cells so they need to type each value only once.

United States State shapes for Office

I want to create visuals along the lines of CNN's "red-state, blue-state" shadings of the states in the U.S. for my project. I'm planning to do something fancier than just shading the state's shape in a color. Are there open source libraries of state shapes/polygons (or - if not open source - others) that I can import into Word, Excel, etc. that I can use to show complicated graphs based on states?
I have Map Point, but haven't been able to figure out how to shade the states in a complex way.
you could try google charts, it looks like http://www.woot.com is doing something similar to what you need
Here is a good example using google maps... I've used code like that before.. perhaps from this exact example.
http://econym.org.uk/gmap/example_states2.htm
EDIT: you might want to consider converting the states.xml into JSON... it'll be smaller (136k of XML right now!) and should load faster in most browsers.
There might be a couple parts to the question you are asking, but to address the first part "Are there open source libraries of state shapes/polygons...", here's a resource to check out:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SVG_maps_of_the_United_States
It's a list of various SVG(scalable vector graphics) files which can be imported into a number of applications. Basically a giant xml representation of lines and endpoints. This can be directly converted to XAML, if you're into a more programmatic way of charting(ie, C# w/ Silverlight).
However, to address the second part regarding MS Office, Visio can import SVG files for manipulation as well. I'm unsure what type of graphs you were looking for, but I hope this can assist in some small way on your path to awesomeness ;)

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