Editing and updating cross references

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Editing and updating cross references

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Cross-references are fields. Thus, the same applies to them as to all fields: They can be formatted, deleted, copied and moved like normal text, but their content cannot be edited directly.

However, you can always change the type or target of a cross-reference. To do so, double-click on the cross-reference and make the required adjustments for Type, Show or Target in the aforementioned dialog box (see previous section).

Tip: If you want to see which cross-references in the document refer to which targets, you can enable the option Display field names in the dialog box of the ribbon command File | Properties, View tab (alternatively: on the ribbon tab References | group Fields | Field names button or simply Alt+F9).
All cross-references then display the type and target of the cross-reference instead of the page number – for example: {cross-reference.bookmark.page:name_of_textmark}.

Updating cross-references

Just like all other fields, cross-references are not updated automatically. If, for example, you move the target of a cross-reference to another page, the cross-reference will still display the old page number.

When you print the document, however, Write automatically updates all fields (including cross-references). Thus, you can be sure that all cross-references are correct when you print the document.

If necessary, you can also manually update the fields of a document by choosing the ribbon command References | group Fields | Update fields. All fields and calculations are then updated.

Invalid references: If you delete the target of a cross-reference, it becomes invalid, of course. The cross-reference then displays the text "Target not found!" when you update the document. You can correct this problem by removing the cross-reference and inserting a new one (with a valid target).