[comp.text] Misplaced floats in LaTeX

mrwittma@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Martin R. Wittmann) (10/26/89)

I'm trying to work out a decent thesis format using LaTeX.  While I've
had some encouraging successes, I am reaping frustration in a number of
areas.

The current one is as follows:  I have some tables which end up on a
page all by themselves, although there is plenty of room for text.  In
once case, the table is about 20 (singlespaced) lines long, and there is
still room for about 13 lines of 1.5 spaced text.  Now, I have fiddled
with the parameters \topfraction, \bottomfraction, \textfraction, etc.
to try to coerce LaTeX to accept some text on the page.  In fact, I have
the following:
\setcounter{topnumber}{2}
\def\topfraction{.95}			% !!! lots of room for float
\setcounter{bottomnumber}{1}
\def\bottomfraction{.4}
\setcounter{totalnumber}{9}
\def\textfraction{.05}			% !!! pretty lenient text requirement
\def\floatpagefraction{.5}
\setcounter{dbltopnumber}{2}
\def\dbltopfraction{.7}
\def\dblfloatpagefraction{.5}

(I am creating my own version of report.sty, so I've changed them
directly in a copy of that file.)  Still, I do not get what I want.

I am using doublespace.sty, with baselinestretch=1.5, and
fancyheadings.sty, if that should make any difference.  Anyone have any
clues or suggestions?