For the number field of captions associated with figures and tables, a
character format is used in many of our large documents.

Unfortunately, cross references in the text to those captions appears to
inherit the character format associated with the caption most times  (which
is unfortunate, as the numbering/lettering fields are set at 24 point -
unlike the normal/body text of 12 point).

I say 'most times' because in testing on single page documents, this doesn't
always happen - but it does more often than not. And I'm yet to see a long
document produced in house where this hasn't occurred.

Any suggestions on how to avoid cross references inheriting the style of the
field to which they are attached?

thanks,
Christopher