Cross References in Merge Documents

[Guest]

At work I generate documents from merge templates. Since the final documents
always contain a different number of numbered paragraphs I put cross
reference into the template, so that once I complete inserting all the other
stuff, I can update the paragraph references. Problem is, once I create the
merged document the references are no longer active. (Don't get the [Control
+ Click] popup) How can I keep the cross reference active once I merge?

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?RWNvZnJlYWs=?=,

At work I generate documents from merge templates. Since the final documents
always contain a different number of numbered paragraphs I put cross
reference into the template, so that once I complete inserting all the other
stuff, I can update the paragraph references. Problem is, once I create the
merged document the references are no longer active. (Don't get the [Control
+ Click] popup) How can I keep the cross reference active once I merge?

It's not possible. The problem is that inserting a cross-reference generates a
bookmark in the document (that "target" of the cross-reference). A bookmark name
must be unique in a document. Mail merge is designed to generate multiple copies
of the main document, which would mean bookmarks would be duplicated. Since this
is not allowable, mail merge removes the bookmarks. And therefore the
cross-references cannot work.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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