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Custom Captions Keep Disappearing

Anonymous
2023-03-10T16:52:13+00:00

I've set up a template with a chapter and appendix numbering scheme that uses the built-in heading styles (Heading 1 - Heading 9). To ensure that captions reflect the appropriate numbering in the appendix, I created custom captions for tables, figures, and equations. Everything seemed to be working great until Word crashed and when I re-opened it, all of the custom caption labels disappeared. This has actually happened twice.

I noticed that someone had the same issue back in 2015 and posted it to the Microsoft Community. Clearly, nothing has changed since then.

Has anyone found a workaround to this issue? Is there any way to make the custom captions get saved to the document's template? The document I'm working on, which contains over 100 captions in the chapters and even more in the appendix, will be opened/edited by multiple users, including a customer. I'm concerned that this issue will pose a big problem for them. Also, how can I create cross-references for these now missing captions?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

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  1. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2023-03-10T21:38:40+00:00

    Custom caption labels are stored in the Normal template (not the document template), and there is no way around this. They do not (cannot) travel with the document. Each user who works with the document will have to create these labels, and they must be precisely the same for each user for the cross-references to work. The good news is that existing cross-references will work once the custom labels have been created.

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