Subfigs captions beside images

Question

I have this LaTeX code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \begin{subfigure}{0.6\linewidth}
        \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{cat.pdf}
        \caption{}
    \end{subfigure}
    \begin{subfigure}{0.6\linewidth}
        \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{cat.pdf}
        \caption{}
    \end{subfigure}
    \begin{subfigure}{0.6\textwidth}
        \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{cat.pdf}
        \caption{}
    \end{subfigure}
    \caption{3 subfigures: (a), (b) and (c).}
    \label{fig:label}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

I would like the captions of the subfigures (in this case only the letter) to appear to the left of the images, and not below. This is an image of the desired output:

I find it really frustrating that such a simple thing can't be done in a simple way (I still can't find how to do it).

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

You can use tabular as suggested by Zarko. This is another method where we use two subfigures, in one we place only sub caption and in second, only figure. Don't forget to leave a blank line in the middle as I did.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \begin{subfigure}{0.05\linewidth}
      \caption{}
    \end{subfigure}
    \begin{subfigure}{0.6\linewidth}
        \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{example-image-a}
    \end{subfigure}

    \begin{subfigure}{0.05\linewidth}
      \caption{}
    \end{subfigure}
    \begin{subfigure}{0.6\linewidth}
        \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{example-image-b}
    \end{subfigure}

    \begin{subfigure}{0.05\linewidth}
      \caption{}
    \end{subfigure}
    \begin{subfigure}{0.6\textwidth}
        \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{example-image-c}
    \end{subfigure}
    \caption{3 subfigures: (a), (b) and (c).}
    \label{fig:label}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Adjust 0.05\linewidth in \begin{subfigure}{0.05\linewidth} if you have text as caption so that it doesn't look narrow.

Answer 2

With the floatrow package, this is easy:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption}
\usepackage{floatrow}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
  \floatsetup[subfigure]{style=plain,capposition = beside, capbesideposition={left, center},capbesidesep=none, capbesidewidth =0.5em, rowpostcode = captionskip}
  \ffigbox{%
    \begin{subfloatrow}[1]
      \fcapside{\caption{}}{\includegraphics[width=0.6\linewidth]{dejeuner.jpeg}}
    \end{subfloatrow}\\
    \begin{subfloatrow}[1]
      \fcapside{\includegraphics[width=0.6\linewidth]{dejeuner.jpeg}}
      {\caption{}}
    \end{subfloatrow}\\
    \begin{subfloatrow}[1]
      \fcapside{\includegraphics[width=0.6\linewidth]{dejeuner.jpeg}}
      { \caption{}}
    \end{subfloatrow}\\
    }{\caption{3 subfigures: (a), (b) and (c).}
    \label{fig:label}}
\end{figure}

\end{document}