All rules

Reference to a missing figure or table

dangling-figure-referenceon by defaultJapanese / English

A figure or table the text refers to that the document does not have

Example

Flagged
Sales rose (Figure 1) and costs fell (Figure 3). Figure 1: Sales by month Figure 2: Costs by month
What chaff prints
1:39 Figure 3 is referred to, but the document has no Figure 3
Fixed
Sales rose (Figure 1) and costs fell (Figure 2). Figure 1: Sales by month Figure 2: Costs by month
What chaff prints
no finding

How to fix

Check whether the numbers shifted. Correct the number in the text, or add the missing figure or table.

Why it matters

When the text says "see Figure 3" and there is no Figure 3, the reader searches for it and then has to work out whether the figure was dropped or the numbers shifted. It happens when a figure or a table is removed or reordered and the text is not updated. A number written at the start of a line (a caption such as "Figure 1: Sales by month", or a heading such as "## Appendix A") is where that figure is, and a number in the text that is none of them is pointed out. A kind (figures, tables, appendices) that the document never labels at the start of a line is not checked, because its figures may be in another file.

What it does not flag

A document that labels no figure or table at the start of a line, a figure of another document ("Figure 5 of the 2024 report"), and code are not checked. A short title on a line of its own between blank lines ("Exhibit A to Merger Agreement") is read as a heading, so that exhibit is there.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: dangling-figure-reference — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax dangling-figure-reference --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: dangling-figure-reference: off
Technical details
Layer
L3
Status
stable
Severity
warning
Languages
Japanese and English
Suited to
business, technical, blog, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech

Levels

Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).

stricterror
normalwarning
relaxedinfo

This rule has no limit to count to. A level sets how a finding is marked: relaxed keeps the finding and marks it a step lower.

By genre

Runs by default in
technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, speech/address, speech/transcript
Turned off by the genre in
literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play

Genres

Message

{label} is referred to, but the document has no {label}

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/dangling-figure-reference.yaml