Suppress automatic figure numbering in pdf output with r markdown/knitr

Question

I am writing a document in R markdown (.rmd). I would like to be able to knit both Word and PDF outputs. I am having difficulty with figure numbering. With PDF output, the f

Answer 1

Is there a way to suppress the automatic numbering for PDF?

Sure. Add a format variable for your output format and a handler for that format within figref. With RStudio preview edition you could use format <- knitr::opts_knit$get("out.format") but with the release version you'd need to set it manually.
Then in figref() add whatever you desire for the output...

    if ( format == "latex" ) return( caption )
    if (!missing(caption)) {
    --- >8 ---

Personally I'd use the preview edition and a switch statement for the handling. Along the lines of https://stackoverflow.com/a/27321367/173985.