How To: Pages 3 (or even Pages 2) - Table of Figures

[GavinT]

In MS Word (well, my experience of it on Win machines at work), it's possible to add 'Captions' to pictures/diagrams etc etc. These Figures are then auto-indexed. Likewise, Tables can have their own Captions and again have their own numbered index.

So, as well as producing a main contents page in a document (based on the Headings of each chapter, sub chapter), I can also create a Figure List, and Table List.

I have iWork06 (hence Pages 2), and I never found a way of doing that. Looking at the iWork08 trial, and it seems Pages 3 doesn't have that functionality either
Am I just missing something? I really would rather not use NeoOffice (I only use NeoOffice at the moment for Excel support).

In terms of work arounds... well, I can create a new 'Heading' Style called Caption, and just create some text below any diagrams. I can then easily add a Table of Contents, and tell it just to use that 'Caption' Style. However, the issue is the unique numbering. In Word, at a later date, you may insert a new section with new diagrams into the middle of the document. I don't want to be going through a whole document manually renumbering all the later diagrams. I want it to re-index for me.

 

[willybNL]

I've tried something similar, but in the end I just to had type everything...
In word it's even possible to choose how that 'cross-reference' displays itself.

Though this is not really a top-10 missing feature I guess, maybe it's good one to put on http://guides.macrumors.com/iWork_-_Pages_-_Wish_List too.

 

[IJ Reilly]

In terms of work arounds... well, I can create a new 'Heading' Style called Caption, and just create some text below any diagrams. I can then easily add a Table of Contents, and tell it just to use that 'Caption' Style. However, the issue is the unique numbering. In Word, at a later date, you may insert a new section with new diagrams into the middle of the document. I don't want to be going through a whole document manually renumbering all the later diagrams. I want it to re-index for me.

I haven't tried this exactly, but I think you're at least halfway home. If you defined your caption style as a numbered list, wouldn't that work?

 

[GavinT]

I haven't tried this exactly, but I think you're at least halfway home. If you defined your caption style as a numbered list, wouldn't that work?

Yeah, as you say, half way there. Shame the other half I can't do (the auto-indexing and generation of numbers) is that bit that causes the pain


Ahh well, will just live with to be honest. To be honest, for work (where I would do this a lot), I use a WinPC anyway with Office. At home on the Mac, I wouldn't do that much (apart from one document for my pet project)... and Pages is a lot nicer to use than NeoOffice.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Yeah, as you say, half way there. Shame the other half I can't do (the auto-indexing and generation of numbers) is that bit that causes the pain

So you've tried my suggestion, and it doesn't work?

 

[GavinT]

So you've tried my suggestion, and it doesn't work?

First time around, I misread your message...

Second time around I read your message and tried.

It sort of works. I still can't figure out how to make captions look like:

Figure 1: blah blah blah

Figure 2: blah blah dsdf


Numbered list as far as I can see forces the 'number' to be placed at the beginning (1. Figure blah blah blah)
There isn't a way of positioning the number

 

[IJ Reilly]

It was worth a try anyway.