Issue with automatic numbering of figures in a Technical Document

Question

Hi everyone, thanks for taking the time to examine my issue. Basically I've inherited a Technical Document which was imported from Quark some years ago and badly cobbled together in IDesign by a novice and I'm bringing it up to standard to make it a bit more usable but do need to retain the conventions within it. It was written as a chaptered document so I've set up the 'chapters' as Sections in InDesign so as to allow for page number variables and a decent ToC etc. I'd like to have the diagram numbers (and associated x-references) automated too, but am floundering a bit with this.
At the moment all the image captions are set in one paragraph style throughout the document, and I've been playing with the Bullets and Numbering Dialogue within this paragraph style. All the captions are part of the body text or in their own text frames (As opposed to being linked with image metadata or anything like that).
The  manually written image number format in the document reads like 'Figure Chapter number, colon, Image number,  and then some have (a), (b), or (c). followed by the name)'  eg (worst case) Figure 8:5(c) Sealing the Blahblah Adaptor
I realise I might have to set up a named list for each 'chapter' because I can't find a way to define the numbered list to show me;
'Section number, dot, Image number (starting at one then continuing until the next section starts) dot and then if I need it an a, b, c. etc too'
Not forgetting I have set up the written 'chapters' as Sections in Indesign.
If I try adding the 'section symbol' to the number field in the bullets and numbering dialogue (inside my paragraph style)  I just get a weird little blue shape that presumably starts a new section rather than identifies the section I've put it in (so that isn't it) and if i try 'Chapter Number' from the number placeholder menu it only ever says '1' because InDesign only allows one 'chapter' per document (and my chapters are actually sections!).
I do find the coding system for the 'insert special characters or numbered placeholder' really confusing - I'm not familiar with all of them, (and throwing circumflex's and hashtags in doesn't brighten my day) and since I don't know the codes trial and error seemed to be the way forward.  How are we supposed to know the codes - is there a list online somewhere?
I could manually type the section number in the 'Number' text box in the dialogue (if I make a named list for each chapter) and lift a layer of confusion but surely there's a way to identify a section in a numbered/named list?
I think I'm really close but it's driving me a bit crazy - I'm sure identifying levels within named lists might be something to do with it, but I can't see how to alter that. Do I need to set up a new paragraph style AND a new named list for each 'chapter' (section)? The alternative could be to split the document up and make a book file so the 'chapters' become real chapters? (I don't want to do this!)
There's also something in RealWorld InDesign that worries me a bit - it says (even if I had it working the way I want) that it might number unthreaded text frames in the order they were created rather than the order they appear on the page? Um...
The other thing is I do have a mixture of inline and anchored objects throughout this document so that might mess things up too?! *Sigh!*
I'm using InDesign 5.5. for Windows. Many thanks for any tips! Hope somone out there is less confused than me!
kind regards
Phil

Answer 1

You're so right!!!
I really liked the idea of writing a book in pages. Have to write a second edition of something and did not want to use Word2008 on the Mac, because after one year it is still an unstable beast (crashes, crashes).
So I checked ot Pages 09 - and alas
* no xreferences
* no automatic numbering of captions, figures, ...
Then I asked my publisher for FrameMaker: The answer was: NO longer on the Mac since 2005. I can't believe this. Not a single decent program to write a book on a Mac.
I don't want to go back to LaTex after 20 years - HELP me somebody
and show me a few (automatic) workarounds how to play the automatic numbering and Xref tricks in pages.
Otherwise it's really neat - BUT - nut for writing documents longer than 20 - 30 pages that need off that book like stuff.