Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Cross-References

Long, technical, or scholarly documents—or computer manuals—frequently contain phrases like “see Chapter 12" or “see Figure 8, on Setting tabs.” These are cross-references—words that refer the reader to another place in the document. Of course, you can always type your own cross-references—but what a mess you’ll have when you decide to cut a few pages from the first chapter, and all 1,424 of your cross-refs now point to the wrong page numbers!

Word stands ready to create smarter cross-references that update themselves no matter how you edit your document. What starts out saying “See Copies and Pages" will change automatically to say “See Printing Envelopes and Labels" after you insert a 10-page introduction.

Remember these two principles as you start on the road to cross-reference nirvana:

1. Word thinks of cross-references as pointing to objects in your document, not places.

   In other words, a cross-reference has to be connected to a figure, a bookmark, or a heading.

2. Cross-references can only refer to something within the same document.

   If you’re creating a document with multiple chapters, you have to combine them into one Master Document (see Master Documents) before working with cross-references.

Inserting Cross-References

When creating a cross-reference, start by typing appropriate lead-in text into your document: See, Turn to, As shown in, or whatever you like. Then it’s time to get Word involved.

Here, for example, is how you might build a cross-reference that reads, “See ...