Graduate School

Captions for figures and tables - Word for Mac 2008

The Graduate School requires that you have a caption for each table and figure in your ETDR. The ETDR template is configured to automatically create a list of figures and list of tables, also required by the Graduate School, from the text of your captions.

Follow these steps to insert captions:

  1. Click on the figure or table where you want the caption to appear.
  2. On the Insert menu, select Caption.
  3. In the Caption window, in the Label menu, select Figure or Table.
  4. In the Position menu, select where you want the caption to appear.
  5. Click the Numbering button.
  6. In the Caption Numbering window, in the Format menu, select 1,2,3.
  7. If you want to include the chapter number in the table/figure caption number, checkmark the Include chapter number box. If you select this option, two more options will appear:
    1. In the Chapter starts with style: menu, select Heading 1.
    2. In the Use separator menu, select the punctuation you want between the chapter number and the figure/table number.
    3. Click OK.
  8. If the caption label/number looks like you want, click OK.
  9. The caption label will appear above/below the table or figure. To add text to the caption, click after the table/figure number and enter your text.

Notice that the figure/table number appears with a gray background. This background is called “field shading” and indicates that a script or code has generated the number. DO NOT edit these numbers! The figure/table numbers will automatically update as you insert additional captions.

Figure and table captions in appendices

For table and figure captions that appear in an appendix, the Graduate School requires that the appendix letter must be the first element in the caption label. For example:

Table A.1. Elements of data

See the Appendices section for instructions on how to adjust captions to meet this requirement.

To change caption line spacing

If you want to change the line spacing in your captions, follow these steps:

  1. Make sure the Formatting Palette is visible. If not, see Table 1. Basic Configuration for Word for Mac 2008 in the Styles section for details on how to display it.
  2. In the Formatting Palette, make sure the Styles menu is open. If not, click the arrow next to Styles to open it.
  3. For any figure or table in your document, click the Caption style that appears in the left Style Area.
  4. In the Formatting Palette, “Caption” will now appear in the Current style of selected text window.
  5. Point to this window, and a down arrow will appear. Pull down the menu and click Modify Style… The Modify Style window will open.
  6. Above the main text box, click the icon for the desired line spacing.
  7. Click OK.

This will change the line spacing for all figure and table captions in your document.

Long captions

In the case of very long captions, you may want the entire caption to be with the figure or table, but only a portion of the caption to appear in the list of tables or figures. It is possible to do this, but it depends on the line spacing of your caption and a few other parameters. Contact the IT Service Desk (Search the Knowledge Base, Submit a Ticket, or Start a Live Chat) for assistance.