How to get rid of \ref's parentheses (e.g., for subfigure)

Question

I use \ref to refer to a subfigure and it shows like this in my text:

This thing (Figure 5(b))

Double parentheses appear! I want this style:

This thing (Figure 5b)

How to make it happen?

Answer 1

To suppress just the parentheses around the subfigure's (alpha-style) "number", all you have to do is issue the command

\renewcommand\thesubfigure{\alph{subfigure}} % default: "(\alph{subfigure})"

preferably in the document's preamble. However, if the resulting look of cross-references to these objects -- 2c, 5a, etc. -- is too sparse-looking for your taste, you may also want to add the following commands to insert a dot (period) between the figure-number and the subfigure-letter:

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\p@subfigure}{\thefigure.} % default: "\thefigure" (without the ".")
\makeatother

to get 2.c, 5.a, etc.