Numbering photos in word

The caption requirements for a figure and a photo is are different because photographs usually attract more attention than the rest of the text in the document. Moreover, it is important to tell who is represented in the photo, when, where, and under what circumstances it was taken. Often, it is also important who made the photo, as well as some prehistory (or history) of the photo:

  and  

Adding captions for a photo also provides you an opportunity to include additional information that you might not otherwise be able to include in the document.

Many guidelines describe what information and details order should be for good captions and cutlines. Most of them recommend:

• The caption (title) should introduce the photo and grab the reader attention,
• The cutline (description) should tell the reader names, stories, dates, places, significance (the 5W’s and H who, what, when, where, even why, and how).

Attention! We highly recommend checking the formatting requirements, accepted by your college, university, company, or established on the project, etc.

Preparing a photo (optional)

Microsoft Word helps automate numbering but does not tie the caption to the object in any way. Like a regular paragraph, the caption cannot be moved easily “together” with the photograph. Also, it is not easy to leave all parts of the photo description on one page when editing, deleting, or formatting the document.

We recommend inserting photos as floating images (images with text wrapping) for grouping the caption text box with an image below.

Ensure one of the With Text Wrapping choices is selected (see Text wrapping in the Word document) to group a photo and its caption and cutline later.

Note: If you don’t need photo numbering, skip the next step.

Insert a caption for photographs

To add automatically updated numbers and a title (caption) for a photo, select it and do one of the following:

• On the References tab, in the Captions group, click the Insert Caption button:

  

• Right-click on the selection and select the Insert Caption… in the popup menu:

  

In the Caption dialog box:

Select the label and its position

• Under Options:
  • From the Label dropdown list, select the item type you need:

    

    • Equation – see how to create captions for equations,
    • Figure (selected by default) — see how to create captions for figures,
    • Table – see how to create captions for tables,
    • Another label (in this example, My Caption) was created using the New Label… button (see how to create a new label below).

    Note: Remember that each type of object you labeled will be numbered sequentially within its group.

  • From the Position dropdown list, select one of the options:

    

    • Below selected item (selected by default for the Figure label), or
    • Above selected item (selected by default for the Table label).

    Notes:

    1. The document formatting requirements can regulate the caption’s location for a photograph and any figure. Please check the requirements that you must follow.
    2. If you inserted a photo as a floating image (see the point Preparing a photo above), it would be easy to change the caption placement later.

Exclude label from caption

• Select the Exclude label from caption check box if you don’t need to add the label to the caption:

  

  The option Exclude label from caption hides the label from being displayed in cross-references or a Table of Figures.

Add a new label

• Click the New Label… button to create a new label:

  

  In the New Label dialog box, type a new label name:

  

Note: See also how to delete a custom label.

Modify caption numbering

• Click the Numbering… button if you want to change any of the numbering options:

  

  In the Caption Numbering dialog box:

  

  • In the Format dropdown list, select the numbering format you prefer:

  

  • Select the Include chapter number check box to include the chapter number in the caption number. After selecting this option, two more options will be unlocked:
    • From the Chapter starts with style dropdown list, select the heading level you need to include in the caption:

      
    • In the Use separator dropdown list, select the punctuation you want to insert between the chapter number and the figure number:

      

    • At the bottom of the dialog box, see how your choices will look in the Examples section. E.g., “Figure 2.7” means the seventh figure in chapter 2.
    • Click the OK button.

Note: See how to update caption numbering.

Add a description

• To add the text of your caption, click after the number and enter your text. E.g.:

  

Note: See how to edit and modify a caption.

Using an AutoCaption

See Adding captions with AutoCaption.

Add cutlines

As mentioned above, photographs have such a feature that their description contains more than one sentence and even more than one paragraph.

If you have a floating picture (photo with any of the wrapping text options):

• If you inserted a caption with numbering using the Caption dialog box, Word adds it as a separate text box:

  

• If you don’t need numbering and skip steps for using the Caption dialog box, you need to add a text box with a caption.

  To create a new text box, on the Insert tab, in the Text group, click Text Box:

  
    or  
  

  Select the Draw Text Box option in the drop-down list.

Click on the added text box, add a new line or paragraph, and add all text you need. See the differences in how to create a List of Figures.

See also how to change the Caption style.

Group a photo and its caption

Naturally, the photo and its description appear on the same page. To move objects as a single block, you need to group them by doing the following:

   1.   Select the floating photo (photo with any wrapping text options).

   2.   Hold down the Shift key and select a text box with the photo’s caption and cutline:

   3.   Do one of the following:

• On the Shape Format tab, in the Arrange group, click the Group command:

  
• Right-click one of the objects and choose Group -> Group from the popup menu:

  

Word puts a single box around the objects instead of separate boxes around each object:

After these steps, a text should flow around the photo and its description, like one block. Also, the photograph, title, and description will stay together if you move them elsewhere on the page or document.

Delete a caption and an unnecessary label

If you need to remove some caption, select the caption paragraph (full line or several lines) and press Delete. Do not forget to update fields in the document!

To remove the unnecessary label, do the following:

   1.   Open the Caption dialog box.

   2.   In the Label dropdown list, select the label you want to remove.

   3.   Click the Delete Label to remove a custom label:

Note: You can’t delete predefined labels: Equation, Figure, and Table.

See also edit or modify a caption.

We strongly recommend checking a document at least visually after changes!

This thread is old but included a banner that new input is welcome. So here goes.

I was editing a document created by converting a pdf to docx. Some of my editing included replacing images. In the process I observed that my new images would obscure the page number in the footer while the originals, of similar size and similarly positioned, did not. Try as I might, I could not get the new images to sit behind the footer. Searching led me here.

What I finally figured out is that the original images were png format and included transparent sections where the page number was located. Converting the new images to png and using IrfanView to make a section transparent solved the problem. It worked for me.

I gather that there are several other formats that support transparency (see here). But, as best I can tell, the image cannot be positioned behind the footer/header. Note that I think there are some games that can be played with watermarks. Perhaps there are others here that can flesh all that out.

An annoyance which made it harder to figure out why I was having the problem was that I’m unaware of a way to extract a picture from a document in it’s native format. Back in the Office 2000 era I recall that you could edit a picture while in Word (in a manner similar to what is currently available in Acrobat). The default was Microsoft Photo Editor but, as I recall, you could specify what editor was used. Apparently not any more.

If you want to make an intuitive reference to an image, you can insert a caption. You can quickly add a caption to a picture or photo in Word by using the Insert Caption function. Word will automatically number your captions of tables or figures. However, sometimes the caption numbering of the figure is incorrect in your Word document and not sequential, which can be a problem. You will find out that figure caption numbers do not show in the correct order. This article will show you how to insert a figure caption in Word and explain how the numbering works. Read about the solutions to fix the wrong numbering in figure captions.

How to insert a caption in Word

Open your Word document and add an image. You can add a caption to a picture by following the steps below.

• Right-click on the image
• Selection opens up > Click on Insert Caption > The Caption dialog box opens up

Or you can use the method below:

1. Go to the References tab
2. Click on the Insert Caption icon > The Caption dialog box opens up

Create a new label

In the Caption dialog box, you can choose from three different labels. A label is a text that appears before the picture numbering, which you can select by default, such as Equation, Figure, or Table. Note that these labels differ when you change your language settings in Word.

There is also an option to create a new label yourself. Click on New Label in the Caption dialog box underneath > This will open a new box called New Label where you can write your customized Label > Lastly, click OK.

In our example below, we have used the word Photo.

Once you have made your new label and clicked the OK button, you will automatically return to the Caption dialog box. Here, you will find the customized word (e.g., Photo) under Caption and the Label selection. You have to click OK in the Caption dialog box to confirm the changes.

Figure caption numbering incorrect due to errors in Seq field

Sometimes the captions don’t follow the same order even though the numbering under the figure is correct. This is because when you add a caption to a picture, photo, figure, and other items in Word, it automatically sets the identifier in a Seq field.

{ SEQ Identifier }

Seq stands for sequence, and it numbers the captions. For more details on Seq fields, read the Microsoft article about Fields codes: Sequence field.

When you insert captions via References > Insert Caption, Word sets the Seq field equal to the label you have selected. You can view the field code in the Seq fields and other types of fields. Turn the field code display on by pressing Alt + F9. It will look like the example below.

{ SEQ Figure * ARABIC } 

All the Seq fields with the same identifier count as one series of consecutive numbers. Therefore, every time you add, delete or change an item with its Seq field, you must update the remaining items with its Seq fields to maintain a new sequence.

Remember that you will only see a Seq field if you add a caption to a picture or photo via References > Insert Caption in Word. If you add a caption manually, you will not get automatic numbering, and there is no Seq field. So a caption with the identifier Figure could look like the example below.

Figure { SEQ Figure * ARABIC }  

If you have copied content with captions from another document, the captions may not use the same identifier or label. The same problem happens if you create Seq fields manually in Word. For example, some captions use Figure as an identifier, while others use Table as an identifier. In this case, you will have two different series of captions that count separately, e.g., one numbering for Figure and another numbering for Table.

Solution of wrong figure caption numbering in Seq field

There is no problem with the caption itself, but sometimes Word won’t let you delete the label or numbering in the caption. You can fix the wrong figure caption numbering in the Seq field.

In our example below, we have inserted four different captions without any pictures. Insert a figure caption in Word > Go to References > Insert Caption > Write your caption and click OK. Unfortunately, the order of the captions is wrong. If you change it manually, the automatic numbering will not work anymore. Follow the steps below to see how you can change it.

Step 1 – The numbering of the captions is incorrect in the below picture. It states Figure 1-2-1-3 instead of Figure 1-2-3-4.

Step 2 – Display the Seq field codes by pressing Alt + F9. Now, you should be able to see the Seq fields of all the captions. However, as you can see below, the third identifier of the Seq Field looks different from the others as it states SEQ Figur instead of SEQ Figure. It can occur when you copy a caption from another document or write captions manually.

Step 3 – Now, you should change the Seq field of the third caption. You can do this by copying the Seq field of the correct figure caption and past it instead of the third caption. Or you can correct it by writing the same Seq field as the other figure. Now the Seq field will look all the same.

Step 4 – Once you correct the Seq fields, you should press Alt + F9 to return. There is a chance that the order of the caption is still incorrect, like in the left picture. It is because you have not updated the captions.

• You can do this by selecting all the captions > Press Alt + A
• Then update the numbering of the captions > Press Alt + F9

Now the numbering of the caption figure should look like the right picture below.

If you did not fix the correct order of the caption numbering, please read about the following problem to find the solution.

Problem caption number for figures incorrect

If you have two pictures next to each other, you may want to label them correctly to make the readers understand. However, even if you start to label your pictures in the correct order, the automatic caption number for each picture shifts.

In our example, we will start to insert a caption for the left picture in Word.

1. Go to the References tab
2. Click on Insert Caption > The Caption dialog box opens
3. The caption automatically states Figure 1 > Now you can write a caption > Click OK
4. The caption under the picture looks correct

Let’s say you want to add a caption to the right photo in your Word document, as Figure 2.

1. First, click on the right picture where you want to enter the caption > Go to the References tab
2. Click on the Insert Caption button
3. The Caption dialog box opens up, but the figure numbering is wrong.

For example, in the picture below, you can see that it automatically states Figure 1 in the Caption dialog box. Also, the left picture automatically changes from Figure 1 to Figure 2. But why is this happening?

Check if a picture is in line with text or with text wrapping

The problem occurs when you have pictures set With Text Wrapping. For example, let’s say that you have two images next to each other, and one of them is set something else than In Line With Text. In this case, each caption ends up in a text box. The right picture in the example below is set with text wrapping. You can check that by clicking on the picture or text box underneath it once. Now an icon called Layout Options appears. Click on the icon to see which layout you have selected for this particular picture.

You can also check it in the Picture Tools tab when you click on the picture. Finally, in the ribbon, you can either click on Position or Wrap Text, which will give you the same options.

Once you add a caption to a picture set with text wrapping in Word, the figure caption numbering becomes incorrect. The numbering of the captions depends on the positions of the text box anchors, which will be explained later. Read further to understand how to insert a caption of a figure in Word with the correct method.

Solution for figure caption numbering incorrect due to With Text Wrapping

Follow the steps below to fix the wrong order due to Pictures With Text Wrapping. You already know how to insert a caption of a figure in a Word document. For this example, we have inserted four pictures in a Word document with incorrect figure caption numbering.

• Go to the Home tab
• Press the ¶ button under the Paragraphs group. It displays object anchors as well as other non-printing marks.
• Or use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + 8

Sometimes you will not see the object anchors immediately. It is because you have not clicked inside the text box under the picture.

• Click inside a caption to see its anchor. See the below picture for further illustration.

• Now click and drag the anchor so that it appears in the correct sequence.
  • Click on an anchor and move it downwards if you want the numbering to come in second.
  • Click on an anchor and move it upwards if you want the numbering to be first.

Sometimes you have to bring the anchor to the end of the document to change its caption numbering. Look at the picture below to see how to drag the anchor icon down. Please check the location of the anchor for the individual text fields with incorrect numbers. Then, please do the same steps for figure 3 and drag its anchor down.

The caption numbering does not always change immediately, but that is not a problem. Read the following steps to see how to update the caption numbering in your Word document.

• Update the caption numbers by switching to Print Preview > Use the shortcut Ctrl + F2 or shortcut Ctrl + P. Now you will see the correct order of your captions on the right side.
• Then go back to the current view by clicking on the arrow in the upper left corner > Use the Esc button.

These problems do not occur if your pictures are In Line With Text in Word, and therefore it is the safest way to add a caption to a picture. There is no need to move the anchors anymore.

Conclusion

You have learned how to insert a caption of a figure in Word. However, sometimes the figure caption numbering is incorrect in Word. If you have pictures set with text wrapping, there is a high chance of having the wrong order numbering in your captions. It could also be due to the wrong identifier in the Seq field, which can easily be changed manually. Now, you can add a caption to a photo in Word using the correct method.