List of tables and partial captions

[Csaba Gabor]

I have a list of tables (LOT) in my about 170 page document implemented as
{ TOC \h \z \c "Table" }
while the table captions are of the form:
Table { SEQ Table \* ARABIC } Table Caption - Additional Text

Example:
Table 3 FTYPE - Associating file types to executables.

The style up till the dash is Word's Caption style,
and then I apply 12 pt. non bold formatting to the
Additional Text.

Trouble is that the list of tables includes all the Additional Text.
I surmise that the LOT is picking up everything through the
paragraph end. So my question is, how do I set this up so that
in the LOT all that appears is:
Table 3 FTYPE


Idea 1. Could I perhaps alter Word's caption style so that the
end signaling paragraph marker does not cause a line break?
I couldn't figure out how to alter this built in style.

Idea 2 simple version. Mostly working. I figured that I could
insert a (non captioned) table with 1 row, 2 columns where
the first column, formatted with Table Caption style, held
Table { SEQ Table \* ARABIC } Table Caption
while the second column held the Additional Text

What I did was:
(This is much easier/cleaner with HTML Tables)
Insert table with 2 columns, 1 row, Auto fit to Window.
This gave me two cells evenly spaced across the page. I now
copied the table caption text into the first cell, then
I had to fix up its style. Then I clicked the cell and
selected Table \ Select \ Cell.
Now I right clicked the cell and selected Table Properties,
Table tab \ Options, and set default Left and Right cell
margins to 0", then on the Borders dialog I selected None,
applying it to Cell, then OK, went back to the borders
dialog selected None applying it to table.
Now I went to the Cell tab on the main dialog and selected
Options and unchecked Wrap Text, then OK. Back on the Cell
tab, I set the Preferred Width to 1%. That is the last
thing to do because the dialog manager likes to forget this
value. Finally I clicked OK to apply all the changes.
Back at the cell, I again right clicked on it and selected
Cell Alignment, and clicked on a bottom aligned version.
Finally, I entered the Additional Text into the second cell.
Now only the initial table caption is picked up by the LOT
so the basic goal is working.

There are a few issues that I see:
1. If I move the "caption table" that I just created up
to abut the original table (by deleting the intervening
characters), then the first table will develop a ".." to
its right, which causes it to become narrower by a smidgen,
which can affect word wrapping. Even though the .. does
not show under print preview, the altered word wrapping
is maintained. Grrr.

2. If the amount of Additional Text is large to the
extent that it needs two lines, then I can insert a
cell below the first one (so that the first one may be
bottom aligned) and this way the second column's single
cell may wrap to its heart's content. Right now, I'm
having trouble getting that top left cell to fit to
its contents, though.

3. This is the tough version. If the amount of Additional
text is large AND the table caption is long, then what I
do it the paragraph above is not so good, and I'm really
back to my original problem. I don't see a good fix for
this yet. There is no appropriate table construct as
far as I can see.

Any thoughts on these matters are welcome,
Csaba Gabor from Vienna
Word 2003 on Win XP Pro

 

[DeanH]

Have a look at Suzanne's webpage:
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/TOCTips.htm
This may help.
DeanH

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Although you have applied direct formatting to part of the caption, you
haven't actually removed the Caption paragraph style. In order to get the
results you want, you have to actually apply a different paragraph style to
the portion you don't want included in the TOC. For this purpose you can use
a style separator in recent versions of Word, or see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/RunInSidehead.htm for other options.

 

[Csaba Gabor]

Fabulous! That is spot on what I was looking for, that style separator.
Silly me, not knowing that such a thing existed, I looked for it, before
posting, under Insert \ Break thinking it was a break between styles.
Thanks to your post, I found out how to insert it at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/285059
(Tools \ Customize \ Commands, select All Commands from Categories.
Now drag InsertStyleSeparator onto the Formatting toolbar, then Close.
View such style separators by going into Tools \ Options \ View and
under Formatting Marks select either Paragraph Marks or All (These
things are tough to distinguish from paragraph marks. When All is
checked it's easier cause there is some dotted line cruft around
them, but when only Paragraph Marks are check there's a tiny dot at
the foot of the thing, but most importantly, there are other
characters on the same line following it)

By the way, your web pages are nicely done, thanks.

I have a comment, should Microsoft be thinking of enhancements to
its TOC capabilities:
My LOT (List of Tables) looks like:
{ TOC \h \z \c "Table" }
It would be useful to be able to do:
{ TOC \h \z \c "Chapter" \c "Table"}
where this would mean the union of "Chapter" and "Table" sequences
instead of simply the final \c parameter as it is currently done.

As I understand it, it's already possible to hide an SEQ entry
from the TOC by including a \h as parameter, and omitting \* from
the SEQ definition.

Thanks again for the tip,
Csaba Gabor from Vienna

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm glad you found what you needed. My article doesn't go into any detail
about style separators because I've never actually used them, and, as you
have seen, Word doesn't make it easy to do so manually. My assumption was
that when you apply two different styles to a paragraph manually, Word would
insert a style separator; I have since learned that that evidently is not
the case (just to make things even more confusing!). Your assumption that it
would be under Insert | Break actually makes sense, though.