Updating the captions of a cross reference

[Guest]

I have a large doc where I need to update multiple fields based upon a master
field. I can create a caption for the master field and then use cross
reference to the master which works fine. When I update the master field by
adding additional characters, the captions update when looking at the caption
or at the cross-reference dialog boxes BUT when I update the multiple x-ref
fields they do not update. I also do not get any results by selecting the
entire doc and F9. The fields are not locked. HELP!?!?!?

I open to other ideas of making this work

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Margaret Aldis]

I'm not sure if I follow what you are doing, but additional characters not
showing up in X-refs is usually the result of the way Word uses bookmarks.
(For X-refs to captions, these will be hidden bookmarks inserted by Word
itself). If you place your cursor at the end of a bookmark and start typing,
the characters fall outside the bookmark and are therefore not picked up in
existing X-refs. For manually-edited captions you just have to work around
this by starting one character in, repeating the next character, adding the
text and finally deleting the last character. If you are doing this with an
additional cross reference you'll need to experiment - you might have to add
an extra space at the end?

 

[Guest]

Margaret,
Thanks for the update -- I figured something like this was happening. Can I
expand and see if there is another way of doing my task - I'll give an example

Top of doc...
List of References
Install Tech Doc (created as Caption 1)
User Guide (created as Caption 2)
Application Guide (created as Caption 3)

Body of doc...
For more info please refer to the User Guide. (User Guide, x-ref to Caption
1)
Please see the Application Guide. (Application Guide, x-ref to Caption 2)
....see page 24 in the User Guide. (User Guide, x-ref to Caption 1)

I want to update User Guide (Caption 1) in the List of References and have
it update the respective cross reference(s). All of the tools I see pull
from the Body doc into a TOC, TOF, TOA, index, etc. I want to start in the
upper part of the doc and globally change references found in the body.
Maybe a macro - go find all x-ref and then update?

Secondly, when I "select all" in the document, my update fields is inactive
and F9 does not update. I have to update all x-ref individually.

Thanks for you help
Tom

 

[Margaret Aldis]

As far as your list of references is concerned, you just need to be careful
if and when you change the text of the reference, to make sure it stays
"within" the bookmark. So for instance if "Install Tech Doc" becomes
"Install Tech Documentation" start typing with your cursor between the o and
c, not after the c.

Not sure why you are using captions or what you are doing about labels and
numbers. You could just bookmark each reference with the same effect, I
think.

I don't know why F9 isn't working globally yet you can update individual
cross references. There are various other tricks to force field updates
which might work better. Have a look at
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Word_Fields.htm, for instance.