When including code for a figure between two paragraphs in RMarkdown, the float resulting from the code might be placed at a different place of the document, leaving space between the paragraphs in the LaTeX/PDF output file.
The following minimal example illustrates the issue:
---
output: pdf_document
---
This is my first paragraph.
Next in the Rmd file would be the code for the figure.
The figure is correctly treated as a float by LaTeX, meaning that LaTeX will put it to the next suitable position.
```{r pressure, echo=FALSE, fig.cap="Example", out.width='0.5\\textwidth', fig.pos='B'}
plot(pressure)
```
The problem now is, that this leaves space to my second paragraph.
Usually, this should not be the case.
In pure LaTeX, there is a linebreak, of course, but no vertical space in addition.
If you put \vspace{-\parsep} at the start of the following text, you'll get the line break without the extra space. That is,
---
output: pdf_document
---
This is my first paragraph.
Next in the Rmd file would be the code for the figure.
The figure is correctly treated as a float by LaTeX, meaning that LaTeX will put it to the next suitable position.
```{r pressure, echo=FALSE, fig.cap="Example", out.width='0.5\\textwidth', fig.pos='B'}
plot(pressure)
```
\vspace{-\parsep}The problem is now fixed.
I don't see any other way to do this: knitr puts blank lines around the figure environment when it generates the LaTeX.