Figure caption with long description, but description not in list of figures

captionstable of contents

I try to have longer descriptions for my figures after the caption. So far, I found a solution to do that. However, the longer description is also displayed in the list of figures, which I don't want. In the list of figures, only the short caption should appear.

Here is my minimum example, I hope someone can help:

\documentclass[]{scrartcl}

\newcommand\mycaption[2]{\caption{\textbf{#1}\newline\small#2}}

\begin{document}
    
    \listoffigures
    
    \begin{figure}[ht]
    \mycaption{Optimizing detection algorithm displayed as an decision tree.}{Longer description. $t_i$ is blabla, $l_i$ is blabla and so on.}
    \centering
    \rule{100mm}{100mm}

\end{figure}

\end{document}

I added a picture of the resulting document and marked what needs to be gone.

Best Answer

Use

\caption[ToC entry]{Float caption which will be different from ToC entry}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Use caption and long description for figure

Use the \caption macro for the (short) "heading" of the figure and just add the longer description into the figure environment (after the \caption and with proper vertical spacing).

\documentclass{report}

\begin{document}

\listoffigures

\chapter{foo}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\rule{1cm}{1cm}% Placeholder for actual figure
\caption{Title of my figure which is displayed in the list of figures}
\medskip
\small
Here in a new line a long description about the figure, in a smaller text
\end{figure}

\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] How to remove the caption and the figure x in the figure but to add the caption in the list of figures

You can use the macro \addcontentsline to add a list entry to the List of Figures (or others).

It takes three arguments:

the filename-extension of the list. (toc for Table of Contents, lof for Lists of Figures, lot for List of Tables, …)
the structure level
- toc: part, chapter, section, …
- lof: figure
- lot: table
the entry itself. Mostly it is preceeded by \protect\numberline{…} whose argument is the number for the entry and it aligns the following text.

My code provides two three commands:

\nocaption that adds only an caption text to the list,
\nocaptionbutnumber that adds additionally a number to the entry (that is incremented before, and
\nocaptionwithweirdalignment that doesn't use \numberline and therefore its entry text is aligned to the left (I wouldn't use it).

Minor Update

I've updated the answer so that the \addcontentsline macro doesn't have hard-coded first and second parameter. The commands should work now in table and other environment that define \@captype and the proper extension macro \ext@<\@captype>.

Code

\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\newcommand*{\nocaption}[1]{%
    \addcontentsline{\csname ext@\@captype\endcsname}{\@captype}{\protect\numberline{}#1}%
}
\newcommand*{\nocaptionbutnumber}[1]{%
    \refstepcounter{figure}%
    \addcontentsline{\csname ext@\@captype\endcsname}{\@captype}{\protect\numberline{\csname the\@captype\endcsname}#1}%%
}
\newcommand*{\nocaptionwithweirdalignment}[1]{%
    \addcontentsline{\csname ext@\@captype\endcsname}{\@captype}{#1}%
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\listoffigures
\begin{figure}[!ht]
F1
\nocaption{Caption 1}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[!ht]
F2
\nocaptionbutnumber{Caption 2}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[!ht]
F3
\nocaptionbutnumber{Caption 3}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[!ht]
F4
\nocaptionwithweirdalignment{Caption 4}
\end{figure}
\end{document}