Thank you (bunches!) for the comments on the nested figure/table numbers. You saved me today when I was struggling and my knows-InDesign-better-than-I-do friend was offline.

I don’t (yet!) need the rest of the information you shared, but it’s a quite creative workaround!

Thanks, again!

-Lori

You can style the text you don’t want as “invisible” after placing, which doesn’t break the ‘update’ route. So if you insert another figure the number updates without getting any extra test (e.g.: you only want the 3.2 out of Figure 3.2).

So if InDesign inserts ‘Figure 3.2′, just highlight ‘Figure ‘ and make it an invisible class, and you have just ‘3.2′ visible.

I put a quick post up with photos if it makes more sense: http://www.ipv6forthemasses.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=5

The resulting Table of Figures looks great for the most part; however, some of the figures are not listed in numerical order. The figures are in order within the book, just not the Table of Figures.

Is there something I’m doing wrong in setting up the Table of Figures or maybe within the document?

Thanks so much for your blog. I have found it a thousand times more helpful than the Adobe InDesign help site.

–Mel

A more detailed version of this exact question was posed in the comments on Bob Bringhurst’s Adobe Blog, but the promised reply never came.

I am very new to InDesign but have decided to use ID for writing up my thesis (actually due in 10 weeks and 1 day :-S) due to its more controlled with its layout design features (over Word).

I am currently looking at how to number my levels of headings, tables and figures in each document (chapter) and then eventually combine them into a book with an overall TOC!
Soooo, all the info above makes a little sense however is still quite foreign to me!!! can someone please forward me to basic 101 class so i can kick some thesis butt.

Cheers
billie

Multi-level numbering is quite easy, once you’ve figured out how to do it. I am using InDesign CS4 to write a technical dissertation, and it works great with my multi-level headings, such as “3.4.1 Partial Transient…”, and figures and tables throughout each section (or chapter). I do have the whole document in one file, but it’s not too large since the images are all linked.

So, to create multi-level headings, you need to use the Level option just to the right of the List drop-down box. My second- and third-level headings use the same list as the first-level headings (this is necessary), except that they are changed to Level 2 and 3, respectively. Then, when numbering the section heading, you can insert the number of the previous-level heading above it. These can be selected using the arrow to the right of the Number field and selecting one of the levels under “Insert Number Placeholder.” So, the text in the Number field for my second-level heading is ^1.^#^t and it is ^1.^2.^#^t for the third-level heading. This presents the multi-level heading with dots between the numbers and a tab between the numbers and the section heading.

As far as figure or table numbering goes, the numbering needs to be done under the same list but on a different level. I use level 4 for my figures and level 5 for my tables. As an example, the figure style has this in the Number field: Figure^.^1-^#:^>. This renders any figure caption anywhere in the document correctly: Figure 3-7, Figure 5-2, Figure 1-11, depending only upon where in the text the style is applied. The ^. is a punctuation space. It’s slightly less than a regular space and keeps any cross-referenced figure instance from breaking over a line; so I’ll never see text like “…see Figure(line break)2-2 for a diagram of…” Also, the en space (^>) adds a nice distance between the figure number and the text explaining the figure.

As a final note, I also use this feature for my bibliography, which has about 230 references right now. (Thank goodness they finally added the capability to put text before the automatic number. InDesign CS2 is incapable of rendering an automatic list of bracketed numbers.) Anyway, the cross-referencing works great, but I run into the same problem that Dolati mentioned about having to manually change “Fig 2-3 and Fig 2-4″ to “Figs 2-3 and 2-4.” Changing the linked text does cause problems when you update the cross references. So, I set up a character style (invisible) that changes the text to white and changes the tracking so that the text doesn’t take up any horizontal space. That way, when I have a set of references like [5][6][7][12], I type [5-7,12] next to the references and apply the invisible character style to the linked references. Then, I don’t have to worry about the linked text giving me a warning that it needs to be updated. Also if the reference numbers change, I can (1) change the invisible character style so that I can see the text, (2) update the typed reference, and (3) put the invisible character style back how it was. This solution is far from ideal, but it works.