TC fields for List of Tables/Figures

[Darrin]

Following up on a question I posted last week( 11/11/2004- Changing style
with Caption)...I have used Insert/Caption to label all Tables and Figures in
my Thesis. However, there is often text in the caption (i.e. explanatory
notes) that I don't want to include in the List of Tables/Figures. I was
looking for a way of changing the style of this text so that it is not picked
up in the Caption style. Some advice I received from my original post
(Thanks garfield-n-odie!!) was to separate the text I want to include in the
Lists, from that which I don't want to picked up in the caption style with a
paragraph mark. Then format the first paragraph as Caption and the secon as
Normal, then when I create my lists it will only pick up the text formatted
as Caption. This is fine and it works well, however it means that the
paragraphs are split over 2 lines.

Is there a way of performing the same thing without the separating the
Caption text and Normal text with a paragraph mark? I have read another post
that suggests that TC fields are possibly the way to go. My attempts to use
this approach have failed. Can someone please explain exactly how to use TC
fields to code a Caption for Lists of Tables and Lists of Figures.

In the caption, when I place the text to appear in the List of Tables, in
quotations, and the other text outside of the quotes, the entire caption
still gets picked up in the List

For example, my Caption is

Table 1: Size distribution of giant clams on Rarotonga, Cook Islands between
January 2000 and March 2003.

but I only want to pick up
Table 1: Size distribution of giant clams

I have tried this formatting within the caption without success

{TC "Table 1 Size distribution of giant clams"} on Rarotonga, Cook Islands
between January 2000 and March 2003

I think there is something to do with a switch that should appear after the
closing quote,

something like

{TC ".... giant clams" \f Type}

but what does the type mean and what letter do I use for a List of Tables or
a List of Figures

Hope this isn't too convoluted and that someone can offer some help. Thanks

 

[garfield-n-odie]

You missed the part where I explained how to hide the paragraph mark between
the Caption and Normal paragraphs, so that the two paragraphs appear to be
one when viewed on the screen and when printed out.

 

[Darrin]

Hi Garfield-n-odie
Thanks again for your help. I didn't miss the part in your first post about
hiding the paragraph mark between the caption and the normal formatted text.
I think I must be missing something here though, because this didn't seem to
work for me.

I have broken the caption text that I had with a paragraph mark, creating
two separate pragraphs. The first one is formatted as Caption. I
re-formatted the second as Normal. I select the paragraph mark at the end of
the caption and try to hide it (Format/font/Hidden) but it still appears. It
isn't hidden, and when i toggle off the display formatting character they
two paragraphs still appear as two, both on screen and when printing. I'm
obviously missing something pretty simple here.
Any further suggestions on what it is? thanks
Darrin

 

[garfield-n-odie]

What version of Word do you have? Try clicking on Tools | Options | View |
uncheck the "Hidden text" and "All" boxes | Print | uncheck the "Hidden text"
box | OK.

 

[Darrin]

I've tried this on a Windows 98 Machine with Word 2000 SR-1 as well as on a
Windows XP machine with Word 2002. I have unchecked all the boxes as
suggested below. Still appears as two paragraphs and not one, even when the
first paragraph is formatted as Caption and the second as Normal. Seems I
cannot hide the paragraph mark separating them.

Cheers
Darrin

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

That's very odd, because it works for most users. What do you see in Print
Preview?

 

[Darrin]

Yes it is odd! I'm obviously doing something quite wrong here. I'm starting
to lose the plot. In print preview it just looks like two separate
paragraphs. The first one formatted as caption and the Normal formatted text
appears on the line below the Caption (which is contained in a text box shown
in print preview).
In the hundred or so attempts I have made (of all possible combinations of
steps) I did get this to work once. That was when my Caption text was very
short, i.e. half a line. Then it did put the Normal text on the same line.
However, if the Caption text was one and a half lines the dimensions of the
text box around the Caption was of course rectangular spanning across the
width of the page X 2 lines. The Normal text was placed on the next line
below the text box containing the caption. I hope this makes some sense- I'm
not explaining it very well. This process will not, whether I hide the
paragraph mark separating Caption from Normal text, append the Normal text to
the end of the Caption text within the text box, only outside the Caption
Text box.

In short I cannot seem to have two styles of formatting (Caption and Normal)
within the same Caption text box.

Any advice on how to use TC fields to solve this problem would be welcome.
My attempts with this approach also failed miserably. thanks!
Darrin

 

[garfield-n-odie]

The Normal paragraph following the Caption paragraph must be inside the same
text box or frame as the Caption paragraph.

 

[Darrin]

That makes sense, but...it will not accept this. If I hit Enter to separate
the Caption text from the text to be reformatted as Normal, it places this on
another line in the Caption text box/frame. However, once I reformat the
second block of text as Normal it places it outside of the text box/frame. I
cannot have two types of formatted text within the same Caption text box it
seems. I have tried this by placing a paragraph mark within existing text to
create tow paragraphs and then reformat the second one to Normal. I have
tried typing in the second Normal text. As soon as I try to reformat
something in the Caption text box to anything other than Caption style It
places it outside of the text box. Hmmm!

Darrin

 

[garfield-n-odie]

It works correctly when you put the Caption and Normal paragraphs in a text
box or when you put them in the main body of the document, but not when you
put them in a frame. If you had said six days ago, or yesterday, that you
were using frames...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can put them both in a frame, but the frame becomes part of the
paragraph formatting, so if you change to a different style, the frame
formatting is removed. The trick is to create the caption as ordinary text,
break it into two paragraphs, then select both paragraphs (and the graphic
as well if you want them to stay together) and insert a frame to contain all
of them.

 

[Darrin]

I don't know why my caption style was in Frames but once i changed the style
to just normal text the problem was solved. Think I will just leave it out
of the frames
since I don't know wha t benefit they are anyways.

thanks for your help.

Cheers
Darrin