Update of cross references with track changes on

[Alessandro Triglia]

I suspect this is a well known issue, but would still like to see a reply on
this forum.

I use track changes regularly, because I often edit large documents
collaboratively with other people. I also use automatic numbering of
paragraphs and tables extensively, and my documents contain lots of cross
references to paragraph numbers and table numbers.

Any automatic update of a cross reference, with track changes on, results in
the same cross reference text (e.g., a paragraph number) being added and
deleted, with both the addition and the deletion being marked as changes.
This should not happen. An addition/deletion pair should only appear within
those cross-references where the paragraph number has actually changed.

This behavior is very annoying, and I cannot find a justification for it.
Why does Word do this? Would it be so difficult for Word to realize that the
new paragraph number is identical to the old paragraph number and thus avoid
adding a spurious pair of changemarks?

I have read somewhere a suggestion to turn track changes off before doing a
field update, but I really think the problem (the bug) should be solved in
Word. Why hasn't this problem been solved after so many years? If this is a
"feature" and not a bug, who needs this feature?

 

[Stefan Blom]

As you have noticed, any kind of numbering in Word will be incorrect until
you have accepted the changes; that's just how the application works.

To prevent the cross-reference fields to display as added and deleted, you
can lock them until editing is completed and all changes have been
accepted.

Note: Ctrl+F11 locks the selected fields, and Ctrl+Shift+F11 unlocks them.