How to Add Captions in Word

You can add captions to images and tables to help inform readers of your document. Use captions to help keep track of images and tables by numbering them as well as providing a short description.

Add a Figure Caption

  1. Select an image.
  2. Click the References tab.
  3. Click the Insert Caption button.
    Add a Figure Caption

    4. The Caption dialog box opens. The default caption label is “Figure”, followed by an automatic number. You can give the caption a descriptive name as well.

    Right-click an image and select Caption.

  4. Enter a caption for the figure.

    5. You could also adjust the position of the label by clicking the Position list arrow and selecting another option. By default, captions will appear below figures.

  5. Click OK.
    Add a Figure Caption

A caption is added below the image.

Captions added this way will automatically number themselves, in order, from the start of the document. If you add a new caption to an earlier figure, each caption after is automatically renumbered.

Since caption numbers can change, create references to captions in your document by clicking the Cross-reference button on the References tab and selecting the caption. This way, the reference in the text will automatically change when the caption number does.

Add a Table Caption

You can add a caption to a table in the same way that you can add a caption to a figure. If you have multiple types of captions in a document, you may also want to customize the numbering style so they don’t all look the same.

  1. Select a table.
  2. Click the Insert Caption button.
  3. Click the Label list arrow.
  4. Select Table.
    Add a Table Caption

    5. The caption label changes to Table. This also restarts the numbering to only include table captions and changes the position of the caption as well.

  5. Click the Numbering button.
  6. Click the Format list arrow and select a new numbering format.

    7. You can order captions with numbers, letters, or roman numerals.

  7. Click OK.
    Add a Table Caption

    8. The numbering format is applied.

  8. Enter a caption for the table.
  9. Click OK.
    Add a Table Caption

The table caption is added above the table and will use the specified numbering format.

Add Table of Figures

Once you have a few figures in your document, you can create a table of figures, listing each figure and the page it’s found on.

  1. Click in your document where you want the table of figures to appear.
  2. Click the Insert Table of Figures button on the References tab.
    Add a Table of Figures
  3. Click the Caption label list arrow.

    4. You can create a caption list for equations, figures, or tables.

  4. Select a caption type.
  5. (Optional) Customize the table of figures.

    6. We can hide or show page numbers, change how page numbers are aligned, and change the tab leader between the caption labels and the page number.

  6. Click OK
    Add a Table of Figures

The table of figures is inserted and lists all the figures in the document.

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