Including images in a report is very common in LaTeX. Structuring your work nicely is probably the most obvious reason why you want to put two figures/tables side-by-side. Another reason might be to save space, wherever a smaller size of an image is sufficient. The following code can be used to place two figures side-by-side by creating a minipage:
\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{filename1}
\caption{default}
\label{fig:figure1}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.5cm}
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{filename2}
\caption{default}
\label{fig:figure2}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}
Note, for certain figure manipulations such as width, loading the graphicx package is required:
\usepackage{graphicx}
The same “local column” – effect can be achieved for tables. The following code shows you how:
\begin{table}[ht]
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
1&1&1\\
\hline
2&2&2\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.5cm}
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
1&1&1\\
\hline
2&2&2\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\end{table}
You can also have more than two column simply by adding another \minipage in between the table-command and reduce the width of each \minipage (0.33\linewidth in addition to the \hspace). LaTex will automaticaly place objects onto the next line, if space is not sufficient.
Remark: Using the subfigure-package is another way to place figures or tables side-by-side. You might want to have a look at this post on subfigures.