[R] Page width figures in Latex

[Jim Lemon]

bRotheRs (and sisteRs who might have responded after I posted this),

My heartfelt thanks to you all. I had interpreted "figure*" as "the 
command 'figure' with a wildcard after it", and assumed that I had to 
discover what arcane suffixes might be appended to "figure". The 
following lines got the image on the page:

\begin{figure*}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{hypertens.pdf}
\caption{\label{figure:hypertens}
  Reported hypertension by age, sex and alcohol consumption}
\end{figure*}

Charlie, I might have been lucky that the figure was placed just after a 
page break, but it worked. The figure was centered on its own page, but 
at least I have gotten a working file. Also thanks for the pointer to 
the Latex wiki, I will definitely consult this if I must undertake this 
sort of thing again.

Rolf, when I tried this:

\usepackage{float}   %in the "wrapper" file

\begin{figure*}[H]
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{hypertens.pdf}
\caption{\label{figure:hypertens}
  Reported hypertension by age, sex and alcohol consumption}
\end{figure*}

the figure disappeared entirely. Without the asterisks, I got the single 
column figure again.

Mike, when I tried your suggestion, the figure was there, but still in 
the single column format.

This all conforms to my own little corollary to Murphy's Law:

"There are many more ways to get something wrong than to get it right"

Jim