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From: bjr@clarity.Princeton.EDU (Brian J. Reiser)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: LaTeX figure \caption question
Message-ID: <BJR.90Sep3120917@clarity.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 3 Sep 90 16:09:17 GMT
References: <BJR.90Aug30155525@clarity.Princeton.EDU>
	<8240@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Sender: news@idunno.Princeton.EDU
Distribution: comp
Organization: Cognitive Science Lab.  Princeton University.
Lines: 37
In-reply-to: dhosek@sif.claremont.edu's message of 31 Aug 90 02:16:57 GMT

In article <8240@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) writes:

   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.

   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:

	[original \@makecaption macro and hosek's revision deleted]

Thanks to everybody for their suggestions on how to solve this
problem.  The solution I pulled together from everybody's suggestions is:

\long\def\@makecaption#1#2{
   \vskip 10pt 
   \setbox\@tempboxa\hbox{\small #1: #2}
   \ifdim \wd\@tempboxa >0.8\hsize         % IF longer than one line:
      \quote {\small #1: #2\par}\endquote  % THEN set as quote paragraph
     \else                                 % ELSE center.
     \hbox to\hsize{\hfil\box\@tempboxa\hfil}  
   \fi}

-- Brian Reiser
   Cognitive Science Laboratory
   Princeton University