List of Illustrations?

My Quandary

How to make a list of illustrations that is separate from the contents page, but which keeps updating page numbers when other changes are made in the document?

Illustrated catalogue of the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company (1886) – Public domain

It turns out that, for my auto-updating list of illustrations with page numbers, what I needed was to learn how to ‘Create a table of figures’.

The key steps to follow were:

  • Preparation
    • Locate the ‘References’ tab along the top of document
    • Insert Caption under each of illustration in document
  • Creating the list in the document
    • Go to the spot in the document where you want the list
    • Locate the ‘References’ tab along the top of document
    • Insert Table of Figures
  • Updating the list
    • Go to the list
    • Locate the ‘References’ tab along the top of document
    • Update Table (whenever needed later).

Of course, within each of these steps there are other options to try out to finesse the formatting but, in essentials, once the captions are done, the rest was rapid and (best of all) accurate.

(*I’m using Word 2016, Windows 10, on a PC)

Author: Alison Ferguson

Back in the 1970s, Alison Ferguson completed one of the first Bachelor of Arts degrees in Professional Writing and then went on to qualify as a speech pathologist, working as a clinician and academic for over thirty years. As well as writing research-based book chapters and papers for international refereed journals, Alison authored two scholarly books (published by Plural Publishing, and Palgrave Macmillan). Now retired, Alison is pursuing her long-standing fascination with story writing in both non-fiction and fiction.

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