Numbered captions for Tables and Figures

[DJBorder]

Is this possible? If so, could someone let me know how to do this - I am stuck.

[phspaelti]

My recommendation would be that you define list styles for these things (Format > Lists > New List Style…). Make sure that they continue numbering across the document.
Then define paragraph styles and add the list style as part of the paragraph definition.
That should do it, I think.

[greenmorpher]

Won’t that numbering get tangled up with other numbering you might be using?

Cheers, geoff

[martin]

Won’t that numbering get tangled up with other numbering you might be using?

Not at all. As Philip said, you make a new list styles for each, eg: a "Tables" list style just for tables, and a "Figures" list style just for figures.

Enforcing those list styles via their own paragraph styles had additional benefits: not only can you control formatting, but it makes creating separate TOCs for figures and tables very easy if you want them.

[martin]

Here's an example file. In additional to showing list styles enforced through paragraph styles, it also show the other benefits:

1. Because the "Figure Caption" paragraph style enforces the "Figures List" list style, it's easy to generate a Figures TOC.
2. The "Figure" paragraph style (applied to the image itself) enforces "keep with next paragraph", so that you don't have a figure placed on a different page than its caption.
3. The next style for the "Figure" paragraph style is "Figure Caption", whose next style is "Normal". This makes inserting a new figure, its caption, and getting back to writing regular document content very easy.

[phspaelti]

I also found (in a brief test) that the style method works even in floating text boxes, with the order of the numbering determined by the anchor of the floating item. Very nice.

[exegete77]

Martin, thanks for the example and explanation. Very helpful.