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Hi,
I apologise if this is a stupid question but here goes: I have a document that includes pictures (jpegs). Under each picture I have inserted an "Auto title" that displays "Figure n The title of the picture" where n is an incrementing integer. I wish to refer to these figures in my text e.g. see figure n. Unfortunately the only number I can get displayed in the cross reference is the page number, all the other "variables" get resolved to either a "?" or a "#" which is not very helpful. Where am I going wrong?

many thanks

Simon

Further information:

I have just realised that the Auto-Title I have defined is not showing up in the bookmark/cross reference list so I have been cross referencing to the image which does not have a level to display. That id one question answered and another to go - why is one of my auto title types not appearing in the list?

Simon

Ah, great that you ask this – I have also encountered this difficulty. To me this seems to translate into a possible feature request for the next Mellel update (i.e. be able to reference the numbers in that appear in Auto-Titles).

It would be great if this could be possible, because it would allow me to nuke or add a picture in the flow of the document and all the cross references to “photo #” would be automatically be updated. This was actually the main functionality that I hoped cross-references would allow me. (As an explanation: I have more than 130 photographs in my dissertation…)

errr lastly:

Strike all of the above : the figures were listed under auto titles, except only the title was listed; I was looking for the text "Figure" which was part of the auto title but only the title is placed in the lists.

Doh!
best wishes
Simon

ozean,

I think that you can. I believe that you need to define an auto title such as "Picture Caption", once entered select it and define how the caption is to appear - this will be a mixture of fixed text and an auto-number e.g. Picture Curr# Title where Curr# and title are selected from the Insert element menu of the Auto-Title page. Note that you can also apply paragraph and/or character formats here as well. Now add some pictures and add an Auto-title of type "Picture Caption" below each. If all is well you will be prompted to enter a title and the picture number and title will be displayed below the picture. Note: I do not know if it is possible to join of fix the auto-title to the picture. Now you get to the point where you wish to refer to a picture (or rather the auto title below a picture). Click the insert cross-reference button in the pallet, select "Auto-Titles" from the references list and navigate down to where the text you were prompted to enter as a title is displayed and select it. Now ensure that "auto-title title" is entered in the elements box and click o.k. Your cross reference should be displayed.

I hope this helps - beware that I have only been using Mellel for two days so what do I know!

best wishes
Simon

Ah, I did not realize that with version 2.5 there is another tab for “Ref format” in the Auto-Title setup. Yay! This does indeed solve all my problems

but have you managed to get it to work? I can only get references if I form the reference as described above, the default value does not come across and I have no idea why.

Simon Knight wrote:but have you managed to get it to work? I can only get references if I form the reference as described above, the default value does not come across and I have no idea why.

I fear that I do not really understand the problem you have…? These cross-references are powerful, but really complicated to describe and explain – as you can see from my post, it took me quite a while to discover some basic settings, and I am still somewhat unfamiliar with the terminology.

The problem I am having is that I can see the Ref Format tab in the edit Title flows display when I edit Auto Titles and it looks good. Unfortunately when I add a cross reference the data is not used as I am forced to reselect the fields that I wish displayed from within the Xrefs menu. In other words I don't see how the data in the Ref Format tab is used.

Simon

Hm, if I understood the problem correctly, you only have to choose “Auto-title format” in the “Edit Reference” window. (See screenshot.) For me, this generates a reference that displays whatever I have defined in the Auto-title flow dialog. Hope this helps!

Ozean,

Yes thanks, I don't know how I managed to miss that selection - Doh! I don't suppose that there is a way to set "Auto-Title format" as the default, mine comes up always set to page.

Many thanks

Simon

If you find _any_ way to change the defaults in this dialog (best would be, of course, if it would just remember the last setting and selection), that would be perfect. I stopped working on my cross-references after two hours or so only brought me through the first of three main chapters…

Preferences > Styles > Default reference format

It's a bit hidden, I know. Took me some time before I found it...

best
michael

Ah, interesting! First, I thought this won't help me much, since the default reference style selection does not offer a choice of elements (I need {Auto-title format} as the default), but then I realized that I can

• select {Auto-title format} as the sole element present and then
• save this as a new Reference format in the Reference format drop-down menu

Excellent!

Now it would be nice if Mellel would remember the last Reference type selection the next time I open the Edit Reference window… But that is not all! Maybe Mellel could even remember the position of the Edit Reference window – the way it is now, I often have to move the Edit Reference window around because it is centered on the screen, hovering right above my document, and after making so many clicks in the window to get to the correct selection area, I forgot if the image that I want to reference has number 62 or 63.

This thread has been very helpful for me. I also need to have a series of figures that are automatically numbered and referenced in the text. So far I seem to have everything working except for the character attributes for both the auto-titles and the cross-references in the text: they all show as some generic font regardless of what I do. The manual has this bit of information, which is encouraging, but hardly descriptive enough to be helpful:



I tried both options and had no luck. I've created both a paragraph style and a character style for cross-references, but can't seem to apply them. Help please!