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From: dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: LaTeX figure \caption question
Message-ID: <8240@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 31 Aug 90 02:16:57 GMT
References: <BJR.90Aug30155525@clarity.Princeton.EDU>
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In article <7865@helios.TAMU.EDU>, jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu (James Darrell McCauley) writes...
->In article <BJR.90Aug30155525@clarity.Princeton.EDU>,
->bjr@clarity.Princeton.EDU (Brian J. Reiser) writes:
->|> Is there any simple way to modify the formatting of latex figure
->|> captions?  I have some longish captions (approx 3-4 sentences) that
->|> are associated with some graphs included in the document as figures.
->|> The default formatting for \caption is apparently the normal text
->|> size, and if the text is longer than one line, it is in a paragraph
->|> the same width as the text.  I would like to have the captions printed
->|> slightly smaller, and in a width indented from the width of the text.

->|> At the suggestion of a colleague, I tried defining my own version of
->\caption:

->|> \newcommand{\figcaption}[1]{\begin{center}
->|> \parbox[t]{5in}{\caption{\protect\small #1}}
->|> \end{center}}
->....
->|> Does anyone have a better suggestion?  

->Is this better? The words "Figure 11" are the same size as the text:

->\newcommand{\figcaption}[1]{\begin{center}
->                                \addtocounter{figure}{1}
->				\parbox[t]{5in}{\protect\small 
->					Figure \thefigure : #1}
->			    \end{center}}

Sigh.

Suppose he wanted a list of figures too?

OK, the correct way for changing the formatting of a caption:
LaTeX defines \caption so that the actual printing of the caption
text is handled by the \@makecaption macro. For example,
article.sty defines \@makecaption to center the caption if it is
one line or less and to typeset it as a paragraph otherwise with
the definition:

% \@makecaption{NUMBER}{TEXT} : Macro to make a figure or table caption.  
%      NUMBER : Figure or table number--e.g., 'Figure 3.2' 
%      TEXT   : The caption text.
%  Macro should be called inside a \parbox of right width, with \normalsize.
% changed 25 Jun 86 to fix according to Howard Trickey:
% instead of \unhbox\@tempboxa\par we do #1: #2\par

\long\def\@makecaption#1#2{
   \vskip 10pt 
   \setbox\@tempboxa\hbox{#1: #2}
   \ifdim \wd\@tempboxa >\hsize   % IF longer than one line:
       #1: #2\par                 %   THEN set as ordinary paragraph.
     \else                        %   ELSE  center.
       \hbox to\hsize{\hfil\box\@tempboxa\hfil}  
   \fi}

The following code (placed in mycaption.sty, say) will produce
centered nine-point captions in 10pt text (the caption size will
increase with the text size as \small grows).

\long\def\@makecaption#1#2{
     \begin{center}
     \small
     #1: #2\par                 
     \end{center}}

Note that the \vskip was removed since the center environment
carries its own space around with it.

-dh

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