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JX reports: <<I've working on an approximately 140 page programmer document.
There aren't a ton of tables or figures. Currently,their titles/captions are
in the side bar to the left. For instance: "Figure 5, The Creation of the
Earth"... My cross references in FrameMaker always say something like: For
details, see Figure 5, "The Creation of the Earth" on page 123... I'm now
wondering whether there is genuine benefit of the table and figure numbering
when my xrefs diligently include a well-thought-out name and the page
number.>>
The simplest approach is just to refer to "Figure 5 on page 123". If the
figures and tables are numbered, there's no need to repeat the titles--in
fact, doing so just adds verbiage the reader has to cut through. The purpose
of both numbers is to make it easier to find the table or figure; adding
text doesn't support this goal.
<<Many folks will read the HTML version and/or read it non-linearly anyway.
Although I could do the HTML different WRT this issue, is there *genuine*
benefit on the paper/PDF versions?>>
You should delete all page references when you create the HTML, since there
are no page numbers. Conversely, if the PDF contains page numbers and
there's any chance the readers will print out a copy, the page numbers are
very helpful and should be retained.
<<Does ANYONE here support omitting table and/or figure numbers>>
Nope.
<<I'm sure some folks feel strongly about having them, but how much of that
is habit/convention versus readability.>>
Numbering figures and tables has become both habit and convention because
it's been proven to be so darned useful... that's after (say) 300 years of
experience with producing printed publications, during which time nobody has
come up with a significant improvement on this approach. I'd be curious to
see what improvements on current online information will evolve over a
comparable time period.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
(try ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca if you get no response)
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"Wisdom is one of the few things that look bigger the further away it
is."--Terry Pratchett
