A cross-ref question

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DanZac
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A cross-ref question

Post by DanZac »

I am just starting to use crossrefs for the first time and have read through the userguide. I have a question that I haven't been able to solve.

My dissertation follows a numbers+title auto-title sequence. (5.1, 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2, etc)

When adding an xref, I'd like to refer to the section number (5.1.2) rather than a page number or title. I don't understand how to do this such that if 5.1.2 later become 7.1 I don't need to go back to the xref and fix the elements I used when I first created it. Is there a way to tell the xref to reference whatever number that auto-title has?

thanks
stevicus
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Re: A cross-ref question

Post by stevicus »

Sorry, having recently finished a dissertation, afaik there is not currently a way to do this. You can refer to auto-title format... but this is rarely desirable as the cross ref will appear exactly as the heading, with the same size, font, style. You cannot edit the appearance.

Also make sure you are not using mellel 2.5 as it has a nice little bug that would reset all the auto title previous numbers to 1 every time you closed and reopened the document. (My work around was to leave mellel open for the entire time I wrote my dissertation :lol:)
DylanMuir
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Re: A cross-ref question

Post by DylanMuir »

This is not actually true. If you edit an auto-title flow, and look in the tab bar above the format field, the far right tabe is called "ref format". Go to that tab, select "use a different format with cross-references", and put in the format you want to have appear in the text when you insert a cross reference. In your case, something like (prev #).(prev #).(curr #).

When you insert a cross reference, choose the "autotitle format" element. The formatting you just set up will be used.

DRM
DanZac
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Re: A cross-ref question

Post by DanZac »

**edit** Didn't see your post Dylan, this is what I was looking for! Thanks, this is exactly what I wanted. I knew there had to be a way to do it, it seemed common sense. I customized the ref format tab in the edit auto-titles window. One thing to keep in mind for those who stumble across this, use your character palette to specify that the font match the surrounding font, so that the xref matches wherever it may land.**

This confirms my suspicions. I hope the redlers read this post and consider it a feature request. It would be nice to be able to refer in an xref to an auto-titles "whole" number.
rpcameron
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Re: A cross-ref question

Post by rpcameron »

DanZac wrote:**edit** Didn't see your post Dylan, this is what I was looking for! Thanks, this is exactly what I wanted. I knew there had to be a way to do it, it seemed common sense. I customized the ref format tab in the edit auto-titles window. One thing to keep in mind for those who stumble across this, use your character palette to specify that the font match the surrounding font, so that the xref matches wherever it may land.**

This confirms my suspicions. I hope the redlers read this post and consider it a feature request. It would be nice to be able to refer in an xref to an auto-titles "whole" number.
I don't quite understand what is meant here. You can set the cross-reference to display however you like, and you can also set it to take surrounding style of the text stream it is inserted in (choose "Use surrounding" from the Character Style palette in the Edit Auto-Title Flows dialog).

What feature are you requesting?
— Robert Cameron
DanZac
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Re: A cross-ref question

Post by DanZac »

I guess my edit wasn't clear enough :D

You are right on all counts RP. I didn't understand/know that there was a "ref format" tab. I thought the format had to be described every time I put a new xref in.

So, its not a feature request— just a "hey, I just figured this out and its really cool" hat tip.


I still do have a request from another forum post though, regarding auto-titles. I'd like to be able to exclude flows from the numbering system.
stevicus
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Re: A cross-ref question

Post by stevicus »

Wow. I never knew that was possible. Too bad I didn't figure that out about a year ago - would have saved me a lot of trouble. Thanks for the correction DRM
DylanMuir
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Re: A cross-ref question

Post by DylanMuir »

Sorry to be too late for your dissertation, stevicus. :( Mine's currently beefing out towards 150 pages, and I don't know what I'd do without automatic cross-referencing...!

DRM
stevicus
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Re: A cross-ref question

Post by stevicus »

Good luck. mine was only 130 pages :wink:

linking to format is much simpler and straight forward than using prev#.prev#.current#. Me likes it. :D
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