Cross Reference Error

[Dana DeLuca]

I have 672 of these errors in my document:
"Error Reference source not found."

Cross references are used throughout the document for
referencing figures, tables, heading and other numbered
items (paragraphs). The document is on a server and is
password protected for editing because I want many people
to have read-only access to it but not editing privileges.

When I open the document for read only, 672 cross
references were failed with the above error message.
Right-clicking on Update Field does not work. The document
has not been moved.

Not all the cross references are bad, some still work.
This has happened before but only with about 50 errored
references and I fixed them manually by deleting the REF
and reinserting a new cross reference to the target
figure, table or heading. But it keeps happening, now to
the tune of 672 errors. It will take me over five hours
to fix this manually not counting the time to resolve
where in the document the reference is supposed to point.
Then there is no guarantee it won't happen again as it has
before.
Please help.
--Dana

 

[Monique]

Dana,

Make sure that the item you are referencing still exists.
I don't know if you used a bookmark to aide your cross
reference, but you may have accidentally deleted the
bookmark. I can't promise that's the problem, but it's
definitely something to check.

Monique

 

[Scott]

Hi Dana:

I assume that all of these cross-references (whether to bookmarks, headings,
numbered lists, etc.) are internal to the document? If this is the case,
why not keep a backup on your computer that is not corrupt and when the
server copy gets corrupted, replace it. Why would the document location
(server-directory-account etc.) affect cross-references? Are you using
Master-Slave documents? In that case the read-only may prevent the
reference link from completing? I'm interested in your issue and its
solution as I do a lot of cross-referencing and don't want to run into this
problem. Thanks for sharing.

Scott

 

[Guest]

I'm interested in this subject, and whether cross-referencing can cause corruption in complex docs. While I appreciate your suggestion of maintaining a backup copy off the server in case the server copy goes corrupt, can anyone tell me anything about why a doc containing cross-referencing might become corrupt, or whether cross-referencing can increase the chances of corruption

Using Word 2000 on both Windows NT and Windows XP platforms. Any input is appreciated

Alice