Caption outside table?

Question

I'm trying to add a caption to a table in latex, however it throws this error "! LaTeX Error: \caption outside float." From the error I am guessing ti means that it is outside the table, but I have clearly put it inside.

\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|}
\caption{Table1}
Potentiometer & Resistance  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Calculated V\textsubscript{32}} & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Measured V\textsubscript{32}}\\ \cline{3-6}
Position & R\textsubscript{34} & Amplitude & Phase & Amplitude & Phase\\ \hline \hline
1 & 303.8 & & 2.73 & 28.2 & 2.51\\
2 & 1.141k & & 1.81 & 28.2 & 1.63\\
3 & 3.453k & & 0.79 & 28.2 & 0.5\\
4 & 5.33k & & 0.53 & 28.2 & 0.38\\
5 & 7.45k & & 0.38 & 28.2 & 0.25\\
6 & 9.54k & & 0.30 & 28.2 & 0.13\\
7 & 10.84k & & 0.27 & 28.2 & 0.13\\
\hline
\end{tabular}

Answer 1

The tabular environment won't take a caption. You need to do something like this:

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|}
Potentiometer & Resistance  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Calculated V\textsubscript{32}} & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Measured V\textsubscript{32}}\\ \cline{3-6}
Position & R\textsubscript{34} & Amplitude & Phase & Amplitude & Phase\\ \hline \hline
1 & 303.8 & & 2.73 & 28.2 & 2.51\\
2 & 1.141k & & 1.81 & 28.2 & 1.63\\
3 & 3.453k & & 0.79 & 28.2 & 0.5\\
4 & 5.33k & & 0.53 & 28.2 & 0.38\\
5 & 7.45k & & 0.38 & 28.2 & 0.25\\
6 & 9.54k & & 0.30 & 28.2 & 0.13\\
7 & 10.84k & & 0.27 & 28.2 & 0.13\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{Table1}
\label{tab:xyz}
\end{table}

Answer 2

If you don't want to use a "float" (e.g. table or figure) that will "float away" from the place you define it, you can add:

\usepackage{capt-of}

in the preamble and then do something like:

\begin{center}
  \captionof{table}{Caption text goes here}
  \label{table1} % for use in \ref{table1} if you want to refer to the table number
  \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|}
  % etc.
  \end{tabular}
\end{center}

to add a auto-numbered caption to a non-float.