Caption spreading over two pages

Question

I do not know whether what I am asking is even possible or not from what I know of float environment. I have two figures, actually made from a single figure too large for a single full page (Figures A and B in the MWE). My problem is where to place the caption.

I would like to keep the two figures perfectly aligned, so one caption in just one of them is hardly an option. There is no room for sidecaption neither. Another solution would be to use on of the rotating package commands and have the caption sideway, but ideally it would be best to keep all tex orientated the same way. So my question is, is there a way to define some environment that would allow the caption to get the caption over the two pages ? Alternatively, some sort of "continued caption" command would work nicely too.

In the MWE, I am using the solution reported here to have the first figure starting on an evenly numbered page.

\documentclass[a4paper,twoside,12pt]{report}
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{afterpage}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage[format=plain,labelfont=bf,format=hang]{caption}
\usepackage{mwe}

\begin{document}


\afterpage{%
    \clearpage%
    \ifodd\value{page}
        \expandafter\afterpage
    \fi
    {%
    \begin{figure}[p]
    \centering
        \includegraphics[width=\textwidth,height=0.8\textheight]{example-image-a.pdf}%
    \end{figure}
    \clearpage
    \begin{figure}[p]
    \centering
        \includegraphics[width=\textwidth,height=0.8\textheight]{example-image-b.pdf}%
        \caption{Some sorts of very long, useless and stupid caption that I would like to have spread horizontally over the two pages below the respective figures. This is unlikely to become significant in the future.}
    \end{figure}
    \clearpage
    }%
}

\end{document}

Edit: I made a sketch showing . Although option 1 seems something very painful to do, maybe there is a way to do option 2. Maybe ...

Do you mean: The figure has size A3 (two A4 pages), and it should have one caption that runs at the bottom over the full length? That's tricky for several reasons. Chances are that when you print it and glue the pages together, that either some part of the caption will disappear, or there will be a space in the text. If you want to spread the caption over both pages, you could try to do this by hand, by giving both figures half of the caption. — jarauh, Oct 25 '15 at 23:55
@jarauh Indeed, cannot spead floats over two pages cannot we ? But maybe option 2 in the edited question in duable (Clearly not by me though). — HcN, Oct 26 '15 at 00:11
Do you want to treat the two figures as two figures, or as one figure with (a) and (b) components? If the latter, maybe something like this, http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/122977/vertical-spacing-for-two-consecutive-figure-environments, could be adapted. — Steven B. Segletes, Oct 26 '15 at 00:20
@StevenB.Segletes From what he writes, he wants to treat the two figures as one figure. I don't know what kind of figure he has in mind, but for example it might be a large photograph spread over two pages, or a detailed map. — jarauh, Oct 26 '15 at 00:26
@StevenB.Segletes It is actually a very large picture from a quantum mechanics simulation that is best plotted over two pages so to get out all the details once printed. The only problem being the caption though. The caption package give the command \ContinuedFloat so to make two pictures as one. This is certainly a solution, but it still requires manual sorting. Does anyone know how to clear the caption headings for just one caption, or change it to something like "continued" ? — HcN, Oct 26 '15 at 00:37
A similar problem appears for floating tables. Maybe you could try to use the package longtables in some way or try to understand how that package works? — jarauh, Oct 26 '15 at 01:48

Steven B. Segletes · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-26T01:56:53.633

This is based on the approach suggested in my comment. My original approach for the continued figure page was to 1) decrement the figure counter, 2) make \addcontentsline relax, and 3) redefine the continue \@makecaption to omit the label and colon. However, jarauh pointed out in a comment that \caption* of the caption package accomplishes the same thing, so my EDIT incorporates that simpler revised approach.

In addition, I made use of \caption's optional argument to make sure the LOF provided the proper information.

Here is my MWE.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}
\begin{document}
\listoffigures\clearpage
\begin{figure}[p]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth,height=7in]{46.pdf}%
\caption[I am building length so that the caption has reasonable size
and the other caption continues where the first let off.]
{I am building length so that the caption has reasonable size}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[p]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth,height=7in]{48.pdf}%
\caption*{and the other caption continues where the first let off.}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[p]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth,height=7in]{46.pdf}%
\caption{Next figure}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

To omit the text "Figure 1:" and to avoid the additional entry in the list of figures, you can also use the command \caption* from the package caption. — jarauh, Oct 26 '15 at 01:47
@jarauh Thanks for that tip. I did not know, but will edit my answer. — Steven B. Segletes, Oct 26 '15 at 01:54

Caption spreading over two pages

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