How to generate a Table of Figures with Word 16

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Once you have created all the captions for your images [see Adding captions to pictures in Word 16], it’s remarkably easy to generate a Table of Figures from them.

To begin, move to the back matter of your document and click the mouse at the point where you want the Table of Figures to appear.

Next, open the References tab and click Insert Table of Figures:

You should now be looking at the Table of Figures dialog box:

As you can see, the default settings are to:

• Show page numbers
• Right align page numbers
• and ‘Caption label: Figure’

If you are happy with these default settings, click the OK button.

Note: if you have created different kinds of captions – for example, one for ‘Figures’ and a second one for ‘Tables’ –  clicking the down arrow next to ‘Caption label’ will allow you to choose a different label. In this way you can generate a separate table for each label.

How to customise a Table of Figures

To change the default settings of the Table of Figures, click the Modify button on the bottom right of the dialog box [circled in orange above].

You should now see a second dialog box that displays a summary of the current style settings for the Table of Figures:

These settings include font size and spacing, etc.

To change the default style settings, click the Modify button to the right of the preview pane.

Note: these settings control how the table is displayed, not how the captions are formatted. To modify the appearance of the captions, see Adding captions to pictures in Word 16

You should now be looking at the ‘Modify Style’ dialog box you first encountered when you changed the ‘Normal Style’ for your document] :

Format the Table of Figures as you wish and then click OK to save and exit the Modify Style dialog box. The appearance of the Table of Figures should now be customised to your specifications.

How to update a Table of Figures

No matter how carefully a document is prepared, some last minute editing is inevitable, so the Table of Figures may need to be updated.

To begin, click inside the table to select it. The whole table will be highlighted.

Next, open the References tab and select ‘Update Table’ from the options available in the Table of Figures:

Word will automatically update the caption and page numbering in the Table of Figures.

Note: Word may sometimes prompt you to update the page numbers or the whole table. If the editing has been substantial, update the whole table.

How to delete a Table of Figures

Unlike the Table of Contents, there is no specific command that allows you to delete the Table of Figures.

To delete the whole Table of Figures, you will have to manually select the entire table as if you were selecting a paragraph of text.

Note: simply clicking inside the Table of Figures will not work.

Once you have manually selected the whole table, press the Delete key on the keyboard. The Table of Figures will now be deleted, but the captions underneath the actual images still remain so you can reinstate a Table of Figures at any time.

This is the last of the graphics related how-tos, but the defunct ‘How to Print Non Fiction…’ also contains advanced help on Indexes etc. If anyone would like me to post this information, please let me know in comments.

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