I have several chapters filled with figures and tables, which are imported as pictures from other programs into Word 2003. Each image has a caption, added manually in Word and most images are referenced by several cross-references using the appropriate Word feature (so that references to Figure 5 automatically shift to become references to Figure 6 if I insert another Figure earlier in the chapter).

My problem is that if I decide I need to change a Figure/Table in my program outside Word (like Excel or Tableau), then when I delete the existing image and re-import the replacement image, I have to recreate the caption and redo all the cross-references (which will now display an error message like "REFERENCED IMAGE NOT FOUND"). This isn't a big deal to fix once or twice but I need to do this all the time and would like to make the process as easy as possible.

So, any suggestions on how I can replace a figure while maintaining its current caption and all the cross-references to it?

Should I try to have the images dynamically inserted so I could just replace them in their file folder? Is this possible?