Is there a way to suppress numbering in Captions?

[WastingTime]

I am having a lot of trouble with the Caption function randomly renumbering
all of my figure captions.

I have tried the basic function:
Figure {STYLEREF 2 \s}-{SEQ Figure \* ARABIC \s 2} text.
But if I have to change the Outline indenture, which I do frequently on
large documents, the numbers don't match the paragraph anymore. Or the
Heading level may change to something entirely arbitrary. I have tried to
manually reconfigure this by using something like:
Figure {REF _number \w\h}-{SEQ Figure \* ARABIC \r 3} text. That appears to
solve the paragraph number but the SEQ number is not locking down. The
document will arbitrarily change to something like:
Figure {REF _number \w\h}-{STYLREF 2\s}-{SEQ Figure \* ARABIC \s 2} which
forces me start all over. I have tried to just suppres the automated figure
numbering and type in manually the numbers, but there does not appear to be a
way in Word 2003 to do that. I have also tried using the \h command in the
SEQ field, but then the entire caption is missing from the Table of Figures.
I have tried the CTRL-F11 command to force a lock. That feature does not
appear to have any effect on figure captions.

Is there any way to force a Caption to be dumb text only, but still be
recognized when creating a Table of Figures or Table of Tables?

There is no help on Microsoft.com that I can find that explains in detail
what the Caption command is doing, and what critical fields Word is looking
for to recognize the text for ToF use.

Or alternatively, to shut down the automatic renumbering and lock it in
using a field code other than SEQ for instance?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

By default the TOF looks for the SEQ fields, but you can set it to pick up
the Caption (or any other) style instead. If you are using the Caption style
for both figures and tables, you'll need to define a different style for one
or the other.

 

[WastingTime]

How?
Sounds like I need to create two separate styles: CaptionFigures and
CaptionTables.
How is this done?

Then it sounds like I need to tell the ToF to pick up the CaptionFigures and
the Table of Tables to pick up the CaptionTables.
How is this done?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Create the style by choosing New Style in the Styles & Formatting task pane.
In the TOF dialog, click the Options... button, check the box for "Style,"
and select the appropriate style. Of course, you can do the same thing
(albeit less simply) with a TOC.

 

[WastingTime]

I tried this, it seemed to work. I would STRONGLY recommend that Microsoft
publish the details for this as an alternative to using the Insert Captions.
It has the obvious advantage of being able to create a table of pretty much
anything.

I was able to create a Figure heading:
Figure {REF _number \r\h}-1<tab>Name
and mark it as style FigureCaption.
Then I set the Insert, Reference, Index & Tables, Options and checked the
CaptionFigure style. I unchecked the Lables and Numbers, and set Caption
Lable to NONE.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm glad you found a solution that meets your needs.

I tried this, it seemed to work. I would STRONGLY recommend that Microsoft
publish the details for this as an alternative to using the Insert Captions.
It has the obvious advantage of being able to create a table of pretty much
anything.

I was able to create a Figure heading:
Figure {REF _number \r\h}-1<tab>Name
and mark it as style FigureCaption.
Then I set the Insert, Reference, Index & Tables, Options and checked the
CaptionFigure style. I unchecked the Lables and Numbers, and set Caption
Lable to NONE.