Caption-Cross-reference-TOF Problems

[sleake]

Three editors on my project have all experienced the problems listed below in several documents. We were all using Word 2007 with SP2, not SP3 (I’ve now installed SP3). (We save all documents in Word 2003 format for our customer.) I have found two other posts online with the same problems, but no responses.



Background
The documents have Next Page section breaks between sections and appendices. Heading 1 is numbered 1, 2, 3; Heading 7 (the appendix heading) is numbered A, B, C. We use the Figure label for captions in the document body and a custom label, apxFigure, for captions in the appendix.
Problems
1.When a caption is inserted in the appendix, all figure captions in the body (Figure 1-1, etc.) change to the appendix label (apxFigure) and the numbering changes to A-1, A-2, etc.
2.One or more captions do not appear on the cross-reference list despite numerous reinsertions of the table of figures (TOF).
3.One or more captions are not included in the table of figures list.
4.Sometimes, the TOF will display the caption, but it won’t be available in the cross-reference dialog box – and vice versa.
We have tried:
1.Replacing all captions (sometimes corrects the problem, sometimes not)
2.Copying and pasting the document section by section (without the last paragraph marker) into a new document, thinking it might be corrupted. No difference.
3.Updating all captions and cross-references, both individually and collectively.
Does anyone have an explanation -- better yet, a solution? Does the service pack have anything to do with this? Somehow we have got to solve this problem, because we are forced to manually type TOF entries and cross-references -- and sometimes captions. Woe to the person who next updates the documents (probably ourselves, but we hope not our customer).

Configuration Office 2007, now with SP 3
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3, 32 bit
Antivirus: Norton 360, Updated: Yes, On-Demand Scanner: Enabled

[Stefan Blom]

For instructions on how to set this up, see http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numb...ppendixes.html.

[sleake]

Thanks for the response Stefan. We set up appendix numbering several years ago (with Word 2003) according to Shauna Kelley's excellent instructions -- Heading 7 begins a set of three headings for appendices, all numbered with letters. Then there are custom caption labels for figures and tables in the appendices, linked to Heading 7 for their numbering.

This scheme and custom caption labels have been working perfectly up until Office 2007 was installed late last year.

Our problems are with erratic behavior of caption labels, the cross-reference dialog box not displaying some captions and the TOF not displaying some captions. (Some captions not displayed in the Cross-reference dialog do appear in the TOF and others appear in the dialog, but not the TOF.) The result is that we have to manually type cross-references, TOF entries and, at times, even the captions themselves when they "refuse" to number properly even after repeated reinsertions and Alt F9s. I have been noticing strange behaviors for about the last 8 months.

Because the problems are so erratic and inconsistent, I am wondering if the fact that we are all using templates created with SP2, whether that could be at the root of the problem. I have installed SP3, but the problems continue. As I recall from the debacle of unpatched Word 97 (and the red Xs on graphics), if the service pack is at the root of the problem, we'll have to recreate all of our templates (about 30) in Word patched with SP3.

Given that we collectively edit between 45-50 documents a month, this is a huge productivity problem for us.

Any thoughts? Have you heard of the problems I described from others? (I found two posts -- I think in the MS forums -- that also described the same situation, but no one had responded.)

[Stefan Blom]

I'm assuming you are not tracking changes, because that can cause a lot of errors with field and paragraph numbering, errors which won't be resolved until you accept changes and turn off the tracking.

If you use an AutoText entry to add the appendix captions, does that make a difference? Then will they behave?

Issues with the Cross-reference dialog box are mentioned now and then in the forums, primarily in documents with many items that can be cross-referenced. This appears to be a bug, and, as far as I know, this hasn't been resolved.

[sleake]

Yes, we are all using track changes so authors can view our edits. I do know that track changes causes weirdness like marking cross-references as deleted and then re-inserting them -- and sometimes numbered paragraphs are treated the same way. I'm not aware of other oddities.

No, I haven't tried inserting captions with autotext, although I'm working on a template for our users that has caption autotext entries among others. I'll try that approach with the latest document I had trouble with and will post my results sometime next week.

As for the missing cross-references in the dialog box, from what you say we'll just have to live with that and alert authors when we've manuallly types a table of figures entry.

Thank you so much for your response.

[sleake]

Stefan: I tried using a template containing Autotext for entering captions, and also for generating tables of figures. It worked beautifully. No missing figures or tables in the TOF or in the cross-reference dialog box. And no "confusion" about which captions were for the body of the document and which were for the appendix.

Before pasting a problematic document into the template, however, I made a change and resaved it -- this means it was saved with SP3 on Office. Not sure whether this or the Autotext solved the problem, but it seems solved.

I didn't see where I could mark the post as solved, but I did rate your suggestion as Excellent. Thank you thank you!

[Stefan Blom]

You are welcome!

[sleake]

Update: While the template with autotext did seem to fix the problem, I learned that Track Changes is the culprit, as you stated, to fix problems with documents not based on the template with the autotext. Just in case this may help others looking for solutions.

Thanks again.

[Stefan Blom]

You are welcome. Thank you for the follow-up!

[rezashisheie]

I have the same problem and I turned off the track changes but still my captions do not show up in neither cross reference section nor caption. I re-installed word 2013 on my new windows (re-installed the same win) and all my captions and are gone. They still exist in the text and I can copy and paste them and then update them but the do not show up in the cross reference section. this problem exists in my file on all computers.

[Stefan Blom]

Which specific caption label are you referring to? You may have to (re-)create the label, unless you are using the built-in Figure, Table, or Equation label.