Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 21, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365
Captions are normally included as a design element of a document. For instance, your design may dictate that every table needs to include a caption that identifies the table. There are two ways you can add a caption in your document. The first is to create your own, and the second is to have Word add the caption for you.
If you want to add your own caption, simply start a new paragraph and type the caption. Then make sure that the paragraph is formatted with the Caption style.
If you want to instruct Word to add the caption, follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Caption dialog box.
Since there are multiple steps to insert a caption in this fashion, you may wonder why anyone would use Word to add the caption. There are a couple of reasons. First of all, when Word inserts the caption there is a certain amount of uniformity that is used. You can specify the same label to appear at the beginning of each of your captions. Second, the number that is added to the caption is created as a sequence field. This means that even if you later move the caption, the numbering of the caption will be automatically updated and corrected by Word. Finally, if you aren't comfortable working with styles, using Word to add the caption precludes you from the necessity of assigning styles.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6267) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Adding Captions.
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2023-10-22 20:01:54
Peter Riches
Hi Allen, I would add that the other advantage of using the 'insert caption' function of Word is then you can then use cross-reference to refer to the item (e.g. see Table 4, see Figure 7) and these numbers will also update automatically.
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