Rmarkdown: cross-reference image included with markdown syntax - latex

Question

I would like to cross-reference an image which I include with the markdown ![caption with spaces](path/to/image.png) syntax.
I would like to be able to cross-reference this image as \#ref(fig:caption-with-spaces).
I am using bookdown::pdf_document2.
Is this possible?

Answer 1

Labels can be attached to images included in markdown using the syntax ![caption](path/to/image){#fig:anchor_name}.
That said, there are two further options
Use LaTeX's \includegraphics command.
Use knitr's include_graphics function.
A LaTeX solution would look something like:
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics{path/to/picture.png}
\caption{Caption with spaces}
\label{fig:example}
\end{figure}
A knitr solution would look like
```{r, fig.cap = "Caption with spaces", label="example"}
knitr::include_graphics("path/to/picture.png")
```
With both of these solutions you can cross-reference the resulting image with \ref{fig:example}.

Answer 2

R Markdown adds a figure ID when generating figures via R, but not for pure Markdown images. In this case, you can add an ID yourself:
![Caption with spaces](path/to/pictures.png){#fig:caption-with-spaces}
The id can be chosen freely, but should start with fig:.
If you'd like a keep everything in pure Markdown, but don't want to add identifiers manually, you can use a pandoc Lua filter:
local stringify = (require 'pandoc.utils').stringify
function Image (img)
if img.identifier == '' then
img.identifier = 'fig:' .. stringify(img.caption):gsub('%s', '-'):lower()
return img
end
end
Use by adding a pandoc_args parameter to your output settings:
output:
bookdown::pdf_document2:
pandoc_args: ['--lua-filter', 'auto-image-ids.lua']

Answer 3

You can add an image with R as:
{r schematic, echo=FALSE, fig.cap="Diseño de circuito esquemático", fig.align="center"}
knitr::include_graphics("schematic.png")
Then to reference the image:
\ref{fig:schematic}
Note: I tried other ways to reference the image like \#ref(fig:schematic) but this did not work for me