Word Captions Don't Format Correctly

Question

I'm creating a Word document that currently stands at 14 chapters. Chapters are separated by section breaks, page numbers appear in the footings, each section's footings are de-linked from the previous chapter's footings, and page numbers restart at 1 for each chapter. To this point all is working well.

I've created at Word table and I want to add a caption for the table. I place the cursor where I want to insert the caption, I click References>Insert Caption and the caption dialog opens. I click on New Label... and I type 'Table 0-' (single quotes are included here so that you can see precisely what I type, including spaces) and click OK. To this point all is working well.

When the New Label dialog closes and control is returned to the Caption dialog, the Caption field contains 'Table 0- 2' because the caption is being inserted on page 2 of the current chapter. However, Word has inserted a space character after the dash, and I do not want that space. In all other respects Word creates this caption correctly but I do not want the space and I don't understand why Word is inserting it.

My question: Why is Word inserting the space and how can I prevent Word from inserting the space so that my caption reads 'Table 0-2'?

Answer 1

You can prevent the extra space (or hide it) by using a Combining Long Stroke Overlay when you create the label. This character is Unicode 0336. Once the label is created, you can continue to use it, and the extra space will not be shown. Here's how:

1. Delete the label you created.
2. Somewhere in your Word document on a blank line create the Unicode character by typing 0336 followed immediately by Alt X. When you do this, you will see what looks like an underline.
3. Now comes the tricky part. You what to copy that character to you clipboard. When you select it, it won't be highlighted. To copy it, place your cursor at the end of the line, hold down the shift key and cursor to the left one time, then do a Ctrl-C to copy it. (You can do a paste in your document to test whether you copied it.)
4. Next select the table and create a caption. Click on New Label. Inside the textbox type:
   "Table 1 " without the quotes followed immediately by Ctrl+V. Click Ok twice.

The caption will now no longer have the extra space. The caption will look similar to what is shown below. The table number and page number will of course will vary.
Table 1–2

Answer 2

Stefan is correct: the 'o-' is part of the Label created, it is not generated by Word. The '2' following the dash IS generated by Word and is correct. My question is solely about the space character that Word has placed after the dash and before the '2'.

The caption reads 'Table 0-<space>2' and should read 'Table 0-2'. And my question is: Why is Word inserting the <space>?

The caption looks like this:
Table 0-<space>{<space>SEQ<space>Table_0-<space>*<space>ARABIC<space>}

and what I'm questioning is the <space> inserted by Word when the caption is created. I've successfully created many captions but have never seen this unwanted <space>. Don't be concerned about the 'Table 0-' because that is the label that I need here.