Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Changing Caption Numbering Styles.

Changing Caption Numbering Styles

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated February 15, 2014)

If you use the captioning feature of Word, you can automatically number all your captions. For instance, all your tables and figures could be numbered using consecutive numbers. In addition, Word allows you to specify how you want the numbers to appear in the caption. To change numbering styles for your captions, follow these steps:

Display the Caption dialog box. (Choose Insert | Caption, Insert | Reference | Caption, or References | Insert Caption, depending on your version of Word.) (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Caption dialog box.

Click on the Numbering button. Word displays the Caption Numbering dialog box. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. The Caption Numbering dialog box.

Using the Format drop-down list, choose the format you want used for your caption numbers.
Click on OK to close the Caption Numbering dialog box.
Click on OK to insert your caption.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (624) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Changing Caption Numbering Styles.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is five minus 3?

2017-02-10 06:32:24

GeordieLad

Hi Erika,

Unless I'm missing something, the logical way, surely, is to use Find and Replace. Inputting Fig. in Find and Figure in Replace and then selecting Replace all should achieve the desired result.

2017-02-10 03:09:22

Erika

In my thesis there are 77 figures that read as "Fig. x" under each figure. I would like to change all figure captions to read "Figure x" (instead of Fig.).
How can I make this universal change throughout the document?

2014-08-27 16:03:50

SE_2000

Any suggestions on how to create a figure title with the number in brackets as show below?

Figure [3]: High Level

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