Using Graphics

Last updated on 2025-06-24 | Edit this page

Estimated time: 12 minutes

Overview

Questions

How do I include images in a LaTeX document?

Objectives

Demonstrate how to include images in a LaTeX document.
Show how to position images manually / automatically in a LaTeX document.

The Graphicx Package

In order to use graphics in our document, we’ll need to use the graphicx package, which adds the \includegraphics command to LaTeX. We’ll add this to the preamble of our document:

LATEX

\usepackage{graphicx}

We can now include several types of images in our document, including:

JPEG
PNG
PDF
EPS

For the purposes of this lesson, we’ll use the following image:

Callout

Download this image to your computer either be right-clicking on the image and selecting “Save Image As…” or by clicking on the image and saving it from the browser.

You can use any image you like for this lesson. Just make sure to replace example-image.PNG with the name of your image in the following examples.

Uploading Images to Overleaf

In order to incorporate an image into our document, we’ll need to upload it to Overleaf. We can do this by clicking on the “Upload” icon on the upper left corner of the Overleaf editor:

We can then either drag and drop the image into the upload window or click on the “Select files” button to choose the image from our computer.

Once you have uploaded the image, you should see it in the “Files” section of the Overleaf editor:

Show details

You can also use the “From external URL” option to add an image directly from a URL, which would let you use an image from a website directly without having to download it first.

Including an Image in a LaTeX Document

Now that we have our image uploaded, we can include it in our document using the \includegraphics command:

LATEX

\section{Graphics}

We can include \kw{images} in our document using the \cmd{graphicx} package, which lets us use the
\cmd{includegraphics} command.

\includegraphics{example-image.PNG}

Your document should now look like this:

Callout

If you just want to see how an image might look in your document without having to upload one, you can use the filepath example-image in the \includegraphics command. This will display a placeholder image in your document that you can replace later.

Adjusting the appearance of the image

But wait! The image is too big, and it doesn’t fit on the page, so LaTeX has moved it to the next page. Since the image is a little too large to fit on the same page as the text, LaTeX has moved it automatically to the next page. Let’s address that by making the image smaller.

We can adjust the appearance of the image by passing options to the \includegraphics command, just like we did earlier with the geometry package. For example, we can specify the height of the image:

LATEX

\subsection{Small Image}

We can pass parameters to the \cmd{includegraphics} command to adjust the appearance of the image.

\includegraphics[height=2cm]{example-image.PNG}

Other possible options include:

\begin{itemize}
  \item width: the width of the image
  \item scale: the scaling factor of the image
  \item angle: the angle of rotation of the image
  \item clip: whether to clip the image to its bounding box
  \item trim: trim the image by a specified amount
  \item draft: display a box instead of the image
\end{itemize}

Callout

Some other possible options from the graphicx package include:

width: the width of the image
scale: the scaling factor of the image
angle: the angle of rotation of the image
clip: whether to clip the image to its bounding box
trim: trim the image by a specified amount
draft: display a box instead of the image

Positioning the image

We can place the image inside of an environment to help position it in the document. Let’s try placing the \includegraphics command inside of a \begin{center} and \end{center} environment:

LATEX

\subsection{Centered Image}

By placing the \cmd{includegraphics} command inside a center environment, we can center the
image on the page.

\begin{center}
  \includegraphics[height=2cm]{example-image.PNG}
\end{center}

You should see that the image is now centered on the page:

“Floating” Images

It’s often the case that images need to “float” around the document as new text is added or removed. this is called a “floating” image. Images are normally included as floats so that we don’t end up with large gaps in the document.

To make an image float, we can use the figure environment:

LATEX

\subsection{Floating Image}

\kw{Floating images} can move around the page as text is added or removed. We can use the
\cmd{figure}environment to create a floating image.

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[height=2cm]{example-image.PNG}
\end{figure}

When we render the document, we can see that, even though we placed the image at the end of the document, it appears at the top of the page:

Callout

You might have noticed that instead of using the \begin{center} and \end{center} environment, we used the \centering command inside of the figure environment. This is because the figure environment is a floating environment, and the \centering command is the recommended way to center content inside of a floating environment.

Controlling the Position of a Floating Image

We can pass parameters to the figure environment to control the position of the floating image:

h: Place the float “here” (where it appears in the code)
t: Place the float at the “top” of the page
b: Place the float at the “bottom” of the page
p: Place the float on a “page” by itself

It is also possible to combine these options. For example, to place the float here if possible, but otherwise at the top of the page, we can use the ht option. Let’s update our figure environment to use the ht option:

LATEX

\begin{figure}[ht]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[height=2cm]{example-image.PNG}
\end{figure}

Control the position of a floating image by passing parameters to the \cmd{figure} environment:

\begin{itemize}
  \item h: Place the float "here" (where it appears in the code)
  \item t: Place the float at the "top" of the page
  \item b: Place the float at the "bottom" of the page
  \item p: Place the float on a "page" by itself
\end{itemize}

Callout

You can use the package wrapfig together with graphicx in your preamble. This makes the wrapfigure environment available and we can place an \includegraphics command inside it to create a figure around which text will be wrapped. Here is how we can specify a wrapfigure environment:

LATEX

\begin{wrapfigure}[lineheight]{position}{width}
  ...
\end{wrapfigure}

We will describe the wrapfigure environment in more detail in one of the challenges below.

Adding a Caption

We can add a caption to our image by using the \caption command inside of the figure environment:

LATEX

\subsection{Caption}

We can add a \kw{caption} to our floating image by using the \cmd{caption} command inside of the
\cmd{figure} environment.

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[height=2cm]{example-image.PNG}
  \caption{This is a caption for our image.}
\end{figure}

When we render the document, we can see that the caption appears below the image:

Callout

Note that the caption is automatically numbered “Figure 1”. Very handy! We’ll see how we can automatically reference figures and tables in a later episode.

Show details

Another package that we can use to work with images in LaTeX is the hvfloat package. This package is an alterantive way of controlling the position of floating elemnents in LaTeX, like images and tables. It provides a more flexible way of positioning floats allowing us to, for example, place a float at the bottom of the page, even if there is not enough space for it to fit.

Challenges

Challenge 1: Can you do it?

Consider again our running example of example-image.PNG. Include this image into your LaTeX document by using the figure environment. Make sure that your image is centered and rotate the image by 45 degree. Add the following caption to your image: “This caption has a bold word included.” How would your LaTeX look like?

Output

We use the \centering command in the figure environment and specify angle=45 to rotate the image.

LATEX

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[angle=45]{example-image.PNG}
  \caption{This caption has a \textbf{bold} word included.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Challenge 2: What is wrong here?

Have a look at the following LaTeX code:

LATEX

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\centering
\begin{figure}
  \includegraphics[height=3cm, draft]{example-image.PNG}
  \caption{This caption has a \textbf{bold} word included.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Can you spot all the errors in this LaTeX code? Change the code such that the image is displayed with a height of 3cm, width of 4cm and centered.

Show me the solution

First, the command \usepackage{graphicx} is missing in the preamble. Second, the \centering command has to be placed into the figure environment. Third, the draft argument has to be removed from and width=4cm added to the \includegraphics command.

The corrected LaTeX code looks like this:

LATEX

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[height=3cm, width=4cm]{example-image.PNG}
  \caption{This caption has a \textbf{bold} word included.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Challenge 3: Making a command for images

In the previous section, we created a command to highlight keywords in our document. Let’s create a new command to make it easier to include images in our document. We’ll create a command called \centeredimage that takes two arguments: the image filename and the caption. The resulting image should be centered on the page and have a caption below it. Use the example-image.png from earlier in this episode.

Your file should look like this:

LATEX

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}

% Define our new command
%%% YOUR COMMAND HERE %%%

\begin{document}

\centeredimage{example-image.png}{"My Image"}
\centeredimage{example-image.png}{"My Other Image"}

\end{document}

And your output should look like this.

Reminder: The syntax for creating a new command is:

LATEX

\newcommand{\cmdname}[numargs]{definition}

Show me the solution

LATEX

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}

% Define our new command
\newcommand{\centeredimage}[2]{
  \begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics{#1}
    \caption{#2}
  \end{figure}
}

\begin{document}

\centeredimage{example-image.png}{"My Image"}
\centeredimage{example-image.png}{"My Other Image"}

\end{document}

Challenge 4: The `wrapfig` package.

Have a look at the following LaTeX code that uses the wrapfigure environment. Can you already guess how the images will be displayed in your document?

LATEX

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{wrapfig}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\begin{wrapfigure}{r}{0.1\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.1\textwidth, height=0.1\textwidth]{example-image.PNG}
\end{wrapfigure}

The package wrapfigure lets you position images around your text.
That comes in handy if you want to integrate images seamlessly into your written sentences.
Therefore, I add a few more sentences here to showcase this integration to you.

\begin{wrapfigure}{l}{0.1\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.1\textwidth, height=0.1\textwidth]{example-image.PNG}
\end{wrapfigure}

Be careful, you need both packages, wrapfig and graphicx, in your preamble to display your images
and wrap them accordingly. There are several ways to display images, depending on the arguments you
specify. For instance, you can scale the image width according to the width of the text.

\end{document}

Show me the solution

The first image will be placed at the right of the following paragraph of text as {r} is specified as an argument within the first wrapfigure environment. The second image will be placed at the left of its following paragraph of text as {l} is specified as an argument within the second wrapfigure environment. Moreover, both images are scaled by being 0.1 of the width of the text in your document.

Key Points

The graphicx package allows us to include images in our LaTeX document.
We can adjust the appearance of images using options in the \includegraphics command.
We can position images manually or automatically using environments like center and figure.
Floating images can move around the page as text is added or removed.
We can control the position of floating images using parameters in the figure environment.
We can add captions to floating images using the \caption command.

Show details

After this episode, here is what our LaTeX document looks like.

Using Graphics

Overview

Questions

Objectives

The Graphicx Package

LATEX

Callout

Uploading Images to Overleaf

Show details

Including an Image in a LaTeX Document

LATEX

Callout

Adjusting the appearance of the image

LATEX

Callout

Positioning the image

LATEX

“Floating” Images

LATEX

Callout

Controlling the Position of a Floating Image

LATEX

Callout

LATEX

Adding a Caption

LATEX

Callout

Show details

Challenges

Challenge 1: Can you do it?

Output

LATEX

Challenge 2: What is wrong here?

LATEX

Show me the solution

LATEX

Challenge 3: Making a command for images

LATEX

LATEX

Show me the solution

LATEX

Challenge 4: The wrapfig package.

LATEX

Show me the solution

Key Points

Show details

Challenge 4: The `wrapfig` package.