Thank you Alan. Yes, I have seen the possibility of generating automatically the labels but unfortunately the problem remains when you move the subfigure. In the meantime, I have tried this:

\startplacefigure [number=no]

\startcombination [nx=3]

{figure 1} {\incrementcounter[figure]\textreference[pic1]{\getnumber[figure]}\in[pic1]}

{figure 2} {...similar...}

{figure 3} {...similar...}

in the body of the text, which looked very promising; the trouble is that for some reason that i do not understand, the \in[pic1] in the label of the picture works ok, but anywhere else in the text, either before of after the placefigure environment, it generates a reference to the last picture produced, that is pic3 after and pic0, say, before. I though it was aproblem of expanding the figure counter and added \expanded either before \getnumber of \textreference, but with no luck...

On Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:20:03 +0200

Luca Mauri <luca.mauri@gmx.com> wrote:

I am trying to typeset two or more figures next to each other, inside a floating environment, each with its own label. I am familiar with a mechanism of the form

\startplacefigure[reference=pic]
\startcombination[3*1]
{figure 1}{a}
{figure 2}{b}
{figure 3}{c}
\stopcombination
\stopplacefigure

This does not answer your question, but do you know about:

\startplacefigure

\startcombination [nx=3,alternative=label]

{figure 1}

{figure 2}

{figure 3}

\stopcombination

\stopplacefigure

Alan