In my 19-page MS Word document with 14 figures, one of the figures keep duplicating and popping up on another page, in addition to where it was originally. I keep deleting the duplicates, but as soon as I do other changes in the document it's there again. It seems like it normally pops up on the succeeding pages after my original figure. Sometimes there's even two duplicates, each at separate pages. I use cross-references and I suspect the problem to be related to this. But I'm not sure. Is this a bug in Word, or have I enabled a weird setting somewhere?

Click in the duplicate figure and press Shift+F9. What do you see in place of the text?

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Yes, it is due to cross-references. Essentially, a cross-reference is pointing at a bookmarked area and it shows everything inside that (hidden) bookmark. You have inadvertently placed the graphic inside that bookmarked area and so it appears inside the cross-reference. This typically happens if you have created a cross-reference to a caption and then add a paragraph by putting your cursor at the START of that caption and pressing Enter to create a paragraph above it. You should avoid this trap by placing your cursor at the end of the preceding paragraph and adding the paragraph there instead.

Assuming the graphic is the first thing in the cross-reference, you can fix it by going to the source graphic (not the cross-reference) and...
1. Put your cursor at the END OF THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPH (ie the paragraph above the graphic and pressing Enter to create a new empty paragraph above the graphic.
2. Drag the graphic into that new paragraph and delete the paragraph where the graphic was previously sitting
3. Select All (Ctrl-A) and then update fields by pressing F9

Now go back and check the cross-references.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia