Table of Figures: Use abbreviated/alternative caption for figure?

[acfc]

I have a Table of Figures and my university style guidelines recommend only using the first sentence of a figure’s caption for each entry, instead of the entire caption (if it is long). Also, they want source information removed:

Restrict lengthy figure captions to three lines, and omit sources and
descriptions of a figure’s different parts. Usually, ending a caption at the first
period will suffice.

I have looked around and I can’t find a way to designate an alternative description or label for the figure that only shows up in the Table of Figures.

Any ideas?

Edit: I’m using version 6.4.7.2

[ajlittoz]

It is usually a bad habit to use long sentences for captions.

Restructure your captions as a “title” paragraph followed by whatever text you deem appropriate to explain the figure. Even if the explanation is assigned the same style as the effective caption, only the paragraph starting with Figure n: will be captured in the table of figures.

I recommend however to use two different styles: keep the built-in Figure paragraph style for the caption “title”. Is is commonly centered. And make another style for the explanation paragraphs below the “title”. By using two styles, you can control separately alignment, indents and spacing.

[acfc]

Ok, just for context:

Restrict lengthy figure captions to three lines, and omit sources and
descriptions of a figure’s different parts. Usually, ending a caption at the first
period will suffice.

So I also want to remove source information whether the caption is long or not.

I am trying out the style strategy, but I don’t actually want a line-break. Can two paragraph styles exist on the same line?

[ajlittoz]

@acfc

Can two paragraph styles exist on the same line?

No. As the name implies a paragraph style effect extends to the whole paragraph. But, you can superimpose a character style. Put in the paragraph style what should be the “standard” properties of the paragraph. A character style will override on the range of characters to which it is applied.

Note that the paragraph-character layers strategies in ineffective in limiting the amount of data captured in the list of figures. A full paragraph goes to the list, be it single-sentence or multiple-sentence.

[acfc]

Right, I did try a character style but as you say found it irrelevant in this context. It seems that what I was hoping for isn’t a common use-case. I’ll weigh the workaround options. Using multiple paragraphs as you describe could be the best option, it’s just a structural change to my content that I wasn’t looking for. Thank you for your help!