Redefine \figref so that it can accept optional arguments

Question

I have some figures to include in my document that contains subfigures. I don't use the subfigure environment, but rather I produce only one EPS in which every part of it is labelled as A, B and so on. (editors want subfigures to be uploaded this way).

I want to use these figures also in my PhD thesis and refer to them using the \figref command. The problem is that if I write something like ( \figref{fig:label} A), then the "Figure 1" part is blue and contains the link to the figure but the "A" is black. I find this a bit ugly, so I'd like to redefine the \figref so that it can accept an argument like \figref{fig:label}{A} and the reference and the link (I use the package hyperref in my document) appear blue. Is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

My subcaption package offers a command called \phantomcaption (resp. \phantomsubcaption) for supporting labels and references to sub-figures with already build-in sub-captions. Using this approach there is no need to re-define \figref, it should work with the existing definition of yours.

An example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{subcaption}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}

% Define \figref as abbreviation of "Figure~\ref{...}"
\newcommand\figref{Figure~\ref}

% Use uppercase letters for sub-figures
\renewcommand\thesubfigure{\Alph{subfigure}}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \begin{subfigure}{0.4\textwidth}
    \includegraphics{A}
    \phantomcaption
    \label{fig:test:A}
  \end{subfigure}
  \qquad
  \begin{subfigure}{0.4\textwidth}
    \includegraphics{B}
    \phantomcaption
    \label{fig:test:B}
  \end{subfigure}
  \caption{A demo figure}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}
  \begin{subfigure}{\linewidth}%
    \centering
    \includegraphics{AandBandC}
    \phantomcaption
    \label{fig:test2:A}%
    \phantomcaption
    \label{fig:test2:B}%
    \phantomcaption
    \label{fig:test2:C}%
  \end{subfigure}
  \caption{A demo figure}
  \label{fig:test2}
\end{figure}

See \figref{fig:test:A} and \figref{fig:test2:C}...

\end{document}

See subcaption package documentation for details.

(Please note that this needs version 1.1 (2011/08/17) of the subcaption package.)

Answer 2

You can define the command as:

\newcommand{\figref}[2][{}]{\hyperref[#2]{\figurename~\ref{#2}#1}} 

Use it as \figref{label} for figures that contain only one plot, and use it as \figref[A]{label} for those figures for which you want the reference to be Figure 1A.

Hope this helps!