It is a difficult one which’s had me baffled, however I feel I’ve discovered an answer, due to the answer supplied for Downside 1 right here: https://www.thedoctools.com/word-macros-tips/word-tips/cross-reference-problems-troubleshooting/ (thanks Lene!). I nonetheless don’t know what prompted it and I’d prefer to know as a result of I’ve not too long ago seen it with two completely different purchasers.
State of affairs
Shopper despatched by way of a doc with an pressing plea for me to repair the ‘damaged’ cross references (x-refs). Not all x-refs—x-refs to figures, sections, appendices and some tables had been all nice. However most desk x-refs (about 150?) had been appearing bizarre. I’ve added two screenshots beneath—the primary exhibits simply Desk 5 within the x-ref, when it ought to be Desk 5.1 as per the caption beneath; the second exhibits simply Desk for the x-ref after I up to date the fields, so this time it misplaced the part quantity in addition to the desk quantity inside that part.
Updating all of the fields within the doc mounted this difficulty for the opposite shopper, however not this one. The fields aren’t locked (I checked), the sector code syntax for the x-ref is identical as for those who work accurately ( { REF _##### h } with a special reference quantity, after all), and is identical as for determine x-refs, which do work. If I Ctrl+click on the hyperlink, I get taken to the right desk, and the caption seems accurately within the x-ref dialog field. It additionally updates accurately within the record of tables. It’s the show of it within the doc that’s incorrect—and it received’t replace to mirror the part/desk quantity as per the caption.
With out realizing what prompted it, I ended up having to reassign all these defective x-refs, and I crossed all my fingers, toes and many others. that these fixes held.
Has anybody ever seen this? Or have any concept what’s taking place right here? I believe it might be attributable to completely different programs and many others. A number of authors are working on this 800p doc directly by way of SharePoint, and I don’t know if they’re all utilizing Phrase for Home windows or if some are utilizing Phrase for Mac. And I ALWAYS suspect SharePoint, particularly when a number of authors are working within the doc directly.
Answer
After a little bit of Googling, I got here throughout the article linked on the high of this submit. And I adopted the data she shared within the video, and that was precisely what was taking place with these x-refs—they had been solely pointing to the phrase Desk and never the numbers (see screenshot beneath).
Now that I had an concept of what was taking place, I attempted copy/pasting the part/desk quantity from the caption to INSIDE the phrase Desk within the caption then including/deleting the stuff not required. I then up to date the x-ref and it labored correctly!
Doubtlessly a easy repair in case it occurs once more.
I’d nonetheless prefer to know what the shopper’s folks did to create this example. Or whether or not a Microsoft Phrase replace was guilty. Although I’m nonetheless very able to blame SharePoint!
[Links last checked November 2023]