FIGS. 1 to 5 or FIGS. 1 through 5, which is better?
Asked 8 years ago
I googled to search for how to collectively refer to multiple drawings, and found that there are two ways:
I would like to know which is better.
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There's a third way: Figs. 1-5. If you're abbreviating "Figures" to save space, this format is advantageously even shorter.
I've seen both used and, frankly, they're basically identical. But to be on the safe side, use "through." Here's why:
If this happens to be in a mathematics text, you should use "through" because "to" is mathematically not inclusive of the final number. The same would be true for physical science texts.
But, the further you get from mathematics, the less it matters. If this were a business text, the two words would be colloquially interchangeable. I doubt most editors would catch the difference.