R Markdown HTML Number Figures

Question

Does anyone know how to number the figures in the captions, for HTML format R Markdown script?

For PDF documents, the caption will say something like:

Answer 1

So unless someone has a better solution, this is the solution that I came up with, there are some flaws with this approach (for example, if the figure/table number is dependent on the section number etc...), but for the basic html document, it works.

Somewhere at the top of you document, run this:

```{r echo=FALSE}
#Determine the output format of the document
outputFormat   = opts_knit$get("rmarkdown.pandoc.to")

#Figure and Table Caption Numbering, for HTML do it manually
capTabNo = 1; capFigNo = 1;

#Function to add the Table Number
capTab = function(x){
  if(outputFormat == 'html'){
    x = paste0("Table ",capTabNo,". ",x)
    capTabNo <<- capTabNo + 1
  }; x
}

#Function to add the Figure Number
capFig = function(x){
  if(outputFormat == 'html'){
    x = paste0("Figure ",capFigNo,". ",x)
    capFigNo <<- capFigNo + 1
  }; x
}
```

Then during the course of your document, if say you want to plot a figure:

```{r figA,fig.cap=capFig("My Figure Caption")
base = ggplot(data=data.frame(x=0,y=0),aes(x,y)) + geom_point()
base
```

Substitute the capFig to capTab in the above, if you want a table caption.