How to customize an entry in Table of Figures?

[jrom]

So, I got to format my Figures’ captions as “Figure # - title. description.” with "Figure # - " in bold (Insert Caption > Options… > Character Style: Strong Emphasis) while both title and description maintained their default paragraph style (Default Paragraph Style > Caption > Figure). Like so:

However, when I insert the Table of Figures, their text doesn’t follow this formatting:

And the styles tab offers no advice on how to customize it, since “Figure Index 1” is applied to the item totality:

How can I customize the text in Table of Figures so that their styles remain consistent?

[Hrbrgr]

This is from Table of Content:
Right-click anywhere in the table of contents and select Update index from the context menu.
I think it should also work in Table of Figures.

[jrom]

It doesn’t change when I update.

[Hrbrgr]

Updating, Editing and Deleting Indexes and Tables of Contents

[jrom]

Oh, I can update the table just fine, it’s just that there is no effect in response to changes in formatting. But it seems that I’ll need to edit them manually

[ajlittoz]

This may be thought of as a limitation of Writer, but there is no theoretical solution to it.

You have two locations to consider.

First, the caption itself. This caption is manually written by you and you can format it any way you like with help of character styles (the recommended method to “patch” a paragraph style for some words). Freedom is yours here.

Second the table of xxx (xxx stands for contents, figures, tables, … because the underlying engine is the same). When the table is constructed, a scanning pass is made over the text to collect the required paragraphs (as designated in the table dialog). Only textual contents of these paragraphs is kept and all formatting (styles) is discarded. The reason for this is some formatting may only be relevant in the heading/caption/… context, such as spacing or alignment.

Remember that tables are styled with different paragraph styles than in main text flow. Therefore, it is normal to discard paragraph styles.

I use to give special character styles to emphasised words in my headings/captions, e.g. to disable spell checking on technical words, proper names, trademarks. Unfortunately this careful markup is wiped out in the table of xxx.

This only workaround available is to unprotect the table against manual change and apply character styles manually. I don’t like it because job is to be done again when the table is updated.

Dreaming aloud: perhaps a new attribute is needed in character style definitions by which we could request “sticky” application, i.e. when contents is collected, styles with “sticky” attributes are kept in the resulting table.

[jrom]

Wouldn’t it be easier though to just set it up as Object name (Figure, Table…), separator and caption itself, just like it is already done at caption creation? IMO using styles to avoid spell checking seems more like a monkey patching for another problem altogether than something that should be replicated in the Table of Objects. (for example, I’d very much like a Table of Acronyms and custom dictionaries (names, places …), since it would help correct some of these problems)

[ajlittoz]

@jrom

Wouldn’t it be easier though to just set it up as Object name (Figure, Table…), separator and caption itself, just like it is already done at caption creation?

I don’t follow the idea. Could you please elaborate to clarify.

@jrom

IMO using styles to avoid spell checking seems more like a monkey patching for another problem

Spell checking prevention is not the first goal. I use styles (all of them: paragraph, character, page, frame) to semantically markup my document (a bit like what is done with HTML 5) to provide a higher level structure. In a sense, an automatic scanning tool could extract a lot of information about significance from this markup. Typographical attributes are them overlayed on the styles to get the final appearance. Spell checking disabling is just another potential by-product of the markup. It needs no extra markup; it is available for free due to the extensive markup.

@jrom

… something that should be replicated in the Table of Objects

When words of the heading or caption have been intentionally emphasised because this is significant for text understanding, it would be really nice to forward this emphasis to the table of contents/figure. Yourself feel the need for it because you asked the question. However I kind of think that some emphasis are relevant only for the original text and not in the TOC; hence my dream about a distinction in the application extent of character styles. But I must think on how it fits with my semantic markup method.

@jrom

I’d very much like a Table of Acronyms and custom dictionaries (names, places …)

You can already do it now. Depending on your purpose, it can be implemented as an alphabetical index (unfortunately you can have only one alphabetical index) or a table similar to the one for figures (in which case the entries are listed by order of appearance, not alphabetically).

[jrom]

@ajlittoz

I don’t follow the idea. Could you please elaborate to clarify.

When I create a caption, the dialog allows me to set a different style for the title/description and another one for the object name (that is also applied to the separator), this is what I originally mentioned in the question, but couldn’t reproduce in the Table of Figures dialog.

Hmm, I understand now, and I agree, it would be really useful to set styles this way.

@ajlittoz

Depending on your purpose, it can be implemented as an alphabetical index (unfortunately you can have only one alphabetical index) or a table similar to the one for figures (in which case the entries are listed by order of appearance, not alphabetically).

Thanks, I didn’t know about that, if possible, could you explain how to do it or point me a question about it?

[ajlittoz]

I suggest you ask a separate question where you describe as precisely as possible the expected result. Don’t forget to mention your OS and LO version as there are sometimes subtle differences between platforms and releases.