Citations in captions

This discussion was created from comments split from: Enable citations in Word text boxes.
  • edited August 20, 2020
    I am thoroughly confused by this. I have citations in captions in previous word documents, but for some reason it is no longer possible to do this. Does anyone know what happened here?

    I've tried using the information provided in this post, but I do not get a corresponding footnote. It may be because I'm not using an in-text referencing system. I have found a workaround for those that had the same issue as me, or those that want citations that will update:

    1. Place image in the first row of a table with 1 column and two rows
    2. Type caption into row below image
    3. Add the citation next to the text.
    4. Hide the borders of the table
    5. Right click on table and select properties, choose layout option.

    You may need to create your own caption style if you also want to have a corresponding table of figures.

    It is SUPER annoying that this no longer works properly, as I'll have to redo all my other image captions, but at least there's a "solution".
  • edited August 20, 2020
    @Jes.Mullins What exactly do you mean “it no longer works”? I am able to insert an in-text citation (APA style) into a caption. It updates and produces working citations, bibliography, and table of figures for me without any issue.

    The limitation in Word is that you can’t insert Fields like Zotero citations into _text boxes_.

    What exactly is happening for you?

    @dstillman can we move this to a new thread?
  • edited August 20, 2020
    All morning, whenever I tried to add a citation to an image, I got an error saying Microsoft wouldn't allow a citation in this field (which is why I went looking through the forums and posted in this one, as the title is 'Citations in captions').

    Edit: I did say a moment ago it was working again.... but now it's not. Once again, when I try to insert a footnote next to the caption text I get an error saying 'Zotero fields cannot be inserted here'.

    This is really frustrating.
  • Can you provide the exact steps to reproduce the problem in a brand new document?
  • I've narrowed down the error to an image that text wrapped o 'inline' or square'. My workaround it to create it at the bottom of the page and drag it into place once the citation is added.
  • I still don’t understand where exactly you are trying to insert a citation. Can you give exact complete steps or perhaps take a screenshot, upload to Dropbox or similar, and link here?
  • I am inserting the citation at the end of an image caption.

    1. Insert picture
    2. Assign layout/text wrapping
    3. Right click > add caption
    4: Type caption into field provided
    4. Click and place cursor next to last character of the caption
    6. Click on insert citation on Zotero ribbon
    7. Error occurs.

    As I said, if I do not assign the layout, I can work around the issue.
  • Don’t do the right-click to insert caption. Just place the cursor where you want the caption to be and click Insert Caption from the References tab.

    For some reason, the right click option is sets the caption into a text box, which Word does not allow to contain Fields.
  • If text is wrapped around the image, it will not work. It inserts it as a text box. The thing is, I have images that have text wrapped in others documents and it worked.

    My workarounds is also a flop. I can't move the caption with the image.
    The table option works, but I have very limited control of its placement... sigh.
  • Move your cursor further from the image before clicking to insert a caption. From Word’s perspective the only thing that makes it a caption is the Field with the number. You can insert that anywhere and then cut and paste or edit around it to place it where you want. Use Paragraph formatting on either the image or caption to “Keep with next” to keep the image and caption together.

    You’re overthinking this—don’t place the captions in text boxes, tables, etc. that’s not necessary and will likely cause more headaches.
  • Hi Jess, I had this problem a couple of years ago, the workaround I found was to leave the images as inline with text and then use frames in word instead of text boxes to group the image and caption together and move it around, as word still allows you to insert fields in frames and hence citations will still work.
  • Another workaround that worked for me was, insert citation somewhere else in the document and then copy paste inside figure caption. You can refresh citations after that and it reindexes. Strange but works.
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