The following, inserted into the preamble, defines two new environments, tablehere andfigurehere, which insert tables and figures inline with the column text.
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% Figures within a column...
\makeatletter
\newenvironment{tablehere}
{\def\@captype{table}}
{}
\newenvironment{figurehere}
{\def\@captype{figure}}
{}
\makeatotherIn addition to this, you'll probably need to scale graphics to the column width. This can be achieved with the \resizebox command inside a figure or our new figurehereenvironment. For example,\begin{figurehere}
\centering
\resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{\includegraphics{gf-graphs.eps}}
\caption{\label{gf-graphs}Graph showing applied RF frequency against magnetic field from the sweep coils, the gradient of the lines reveals information about $g_f$ for each isotope. The left gradient, corresponding to \chem{^{85}{Rb}} is $7.73 \times 10^9 (\pm 1.5 \times 10^8)$. The right gradient, corresponding to \chem{^{87}{Rb}}, is $5.24 \times 10^9 (\pm 6.00 \times 10^7)$ }
\end{figurehere}More Info