change the reference format for subfigures

Question

I am using \subfigures to plot multiple figures on two pages:

\begin{subfigures}
\setlength\figureheight{4cm} 
\setlength\figurewidth{5cm}
\begin{figure}[htb]
\centering
\input{Figure2a_1.tikz}
\input{Figure2a_2.tikz}
\input{Figure2a_3.tikz}
\caption{}
\label{fig2a} 
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[htb]
\centering
\input{Figure2b_1.tikz}
\input{Figure2b_2.tikz}
\input{Figure2b_3.tikz}
\caption{}
\label{fig2b} 
\end{figure}
\label{fig2}
\end{subfigures}

So the labels of these two subfigures are 'Figure 2a' and 'Figure 2b'.

In the text, I want to refer to them alltogether as 'Figure 2' and let the reference point/link to 'Figure 2a'. Is there a way to achieve this? Is cleveref helpful on this?

Many thanks!

Answer 1

[I would normally add this as a comment but don't have enough rep on LaTeX Stack to do so…]

Have you tried using minipage in combination with the subcaption package? For instance, the following might work:

\begin{figure}
  \begin{minipage}[b]{.5\linewidth}
    \centering\large A
    \subcaption{A subfigure}\label{fig:1a}
  \end{minipage}%
  \begin{minipage}[b]{.5\linewidth}
    \centering\large B
    \subcaption{Another subfigure}\label{fig:1b}
  \end{minipage}
  \caption{A figure}\label{fig:1}
\end{figure}

Or you could redefine the way the figures were referenced (still need the subcaption package) using:

\renewcommand\thesubfigure{\thefigure}

which should change the label shown in the text. I don't think this will affect the label shown in the, but to be sure, you can use the \subref command and try:

\captionsetup{subrefformat=\thefigure}

I think that will work.