# Can I have a mathematical equation within a caption?

I'd like to have an eqnarray environment (or equivalent) within a table caption. If I do this naively,

\begin{table*}
% table stuff
\caption{\label{tab:my_tab}
\begin{eqnarray}
a &=& b \\ c &=& d
\end{eqnarray}
}
\end{table*}


LaTeX falls over with LaTeX Error: \begin{table*} ended by \end{eqnarray}. How can I get what I want (I don't mind no equation numbers)?

-

Yes you can, if you enclose it in minipage:

\caption{\label{tab:my_tab}\leavevmode\\\begin{minipage}{\linewidth}
\begin{align}
a &= b \\ c &= d
\end{align}
\end{minipage}
}

• The \leavevmode\\ is there to make the equation push below the text Table:
• As well, notice that eqnarray is deprecated and you may use align from \usepackage{amsmath}.
• And as @David points out, don't forget to make a short caption as well for the List of tables.
• Last point, numbering equations at such place is rather strange, as barbara pointed out. You can use \begin{align*}...\end{align*} to suppress it.
-
is a label really wanted on the multi-line equation, or (in this case) two labels? i find that mighty peculiar. –  barbara beeton Dec 6 '12 at 18:03
@barbarabeeton That's a matter of the taste of the author, but I'll add a notice on suppressing it. –  yo' Dec 6 '12 at 18:04
@tohecz - This does not seem to be working when I'm trying to use equations in the caption of a tikzpicture (encapsulated inside a figure env). Is there some other way to go about it? –  TCSGrad Aug 22 '13 at 12:54
@TCSGrad The caption has to go outside tikzpicture (but inside figure). You can ask a follow-up question where you explain that this solution does not work for you. If you construct a Minimal (non)-Working Example, I'm sure we'll manage to solve the problem ;) –  yo' Aug 22 '13 at 20:59
@tohecz - The question with MWE is here: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/129834/… –  TCSGrad Aug 24 '13 at 0:51