Too much white space between caption and figure pr

Question

I'm currently using R's ggplot2 and tikzDevice packages to produce graphics and introduce them in LaTeX documents, but I'm struggling with the resulting big white spaces between the figures and the captions, as you can see if you compare the images (I've manually highlighted the spaces to make it clearer):

Here's my MWE:

The R code:

library(ggplot2)
library(tikzDevice)

set.seed(1)
x <- rnorm(200)

tikz(file = "Rplots.tex", width = 4, height = 4)
qplot(x, geom = "histogram")
dev.off()

and the LaTeX code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\include{Rplots}
\caption{\texttt{ggplot2} plot.}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=3]
    \clip (-0.1,-0.2)
    rectangle (1.8,1.2);
    \draw[step=.25cm,gray,very thin]
    (-1.4,-1.4) grid (3.4,3.4);
    \draw (-1.5,0) -- (2.5,0);
    \draw (0,-1.5) -- (0,1.5);
    \draw (0,0) circle (1cm);
    \filldraw[fill=green!20!white,
    draw=green!50!black]
    (0,0) -- (3mm,0mm)
    arc (0:30:3mm) -- cycle;
\end{tikzpicture}
\caption{\texttt{tikz} plot.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

I'd like to know how to get rid of the great space between the caption and the figure via ggplot2.

PS. R version: 3.2.3, ggplot2 version: 2.1.0, tikzDevice version: 0.10-1. I've taken the code for the second plot from Tobias Oetiker's The Not so Short Introduction to LaTeX 2e, version 5.05, page 116.

Answer 1

It's been so long since I asked this question, but I wanted to answer what was the problem in the end.

As you can see in this question on the differences between \input{} and \include{}, the problem has to do with the fact that \include{} does a \clearpage before and after \include{}, that generates the white space I was talking about.

On the other hand, using \input{} is the equivalent to copy and pasting the code into the LaTeX document, that will prevent the white spaces.

Answer 2

I still don't get your problem, but let me suggest this complete example showing the exact same spacing for the tikz and standard pdf device when used in a knitr document.

---
title: "Untitled"
header-includes:
- \usepackage{caption}
output: 
  pdf_document: 
    fig_caption: yes
---

First, we try this


```{r pdf, echo=FALSE, dev='pdf', fig.height=2, fig.width=2, fig.cap='This is a standard graphic.'}
library(ggplot2)
ggplot() + theme(plot.background=element_rect(colour = "red"))
```

Next, we try this

```{r tikz, echo=FALSE, dev='tikz', fig.height=2, fig.width=2, fig.cap='This is a tikz graphic.'}
ggplot() + theme(plot.background=element_rect(colour = "red"))
```

\newpage

## Fixing space

\captionsetup{skip=0pt}

```{r pdf2, echo=FALSE, dev='pdf', fig.height=2, fig.width=2, fig.cap='This is a standard graphic.'}
library(ggplot2)
ggplot() + theme(plot.background=element_rect(colour = "red"))
```

```{r tikz2, echo=FALSE, dev='tikz', fig.height=2, fig.width=2, fig.cap='This is a tikz graphic.'}
ggplot() + theme(plot.background=element_rect(colour = "red"))
```

Answer 3

it sounds more like a LaTeX question; I think the standard way to tweak the space is to set \abovecaptionskip

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\setlength{\abovecaptionskip}{-15pt} 
\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\include{Rplots}
\caption{\texttt{ggplot2} plot.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}