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From: tgl@g.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Tom Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: lines between floats and text in LaTeX
Summary: Read the LaTeX source.
Message-ID: <10616@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 30 Sep 90 20:05:13 GMT
References: <28404.9009291614@cameron.ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 40

In article <28404.9009291614@cameron.ecs.soton.ac.uk>, S.P.Q.Rahtz@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) writes:
> Is there a style to draw lines between floats and running
> text on a page where both occur?

A few seconds' searching through the LaTeX source (latex.tex)
reveals the following:

%  PAGE STYLE PARAMETERS:
%
%   \textfloatsep   : Space between last top float or first bottom float
%                     and the text.
%   \topfigrule     : Command to place rule (or whatever) between floats
%                     at top of page and text.  Executed in inner vertical
%                     mode right before the \textfloatsep skip separating
%                     the floats from the text.  Must occupy zero vertical
%                     space.  (See \footnoterule.)
%   \botfigrule     : Same as \topfigrule, but put after the \textfloatsep
%                     skip separating text from the floats at bottom of page.
%   \dblfigrule     : Similar to \topfigrule, but for double-column floats.

So something like

\def\topfigrule{\vskip 5pt \hrule height 0.4pt \vskip -5.4pt\relax}
\def\botfigrule{\vskip -5pt \hrule height 0.4pt \vskip 4.6pt\relax}

should do it, assuming you want 5pt between the floats and the rule.
You'd probably also need to change \textfloatsep to make the space
on the other side of the rule be what you want.

In general, looking through the LaTeX source is a wonderful problem solver.
There are a lot of style parameters in there that are not documented in
the manual (why not, Lamport?), and if you don't find one that does what
you want, you'll at least find the TeX code that you need to modify.

-- 
				tom lane
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