How do I make figure captions span multiple pages?

Question

How do I make figure captions span multiple pages?

I have a very long caption for a figure and would like it to carry on to the next page.

EDIT: I would like this to work in both one sided and two sided modes

Answer 1

Instead of using a floating environment which can't handle page breaks you can use a simple list environment. To set a caption you can use the command \captionof. The command is provided by

• the package capt-of,
• the package caption or
• a KOMA-Class scrreprt, scrbook and scrartcl

Here an example

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}

\usepackage{capt-of}
\begin{document}
\kant[1-2]

\noindent\hrulefill

\begin{center}
\rule{3cm}{3cm}

\captionof{figure}[short caption]{%
\kant[4-6]}
\end{center}

\noindent\hrulefill

\kant[1]
\end{document}