cross-refs across included documents

I'm trying to assemble a large document, and many of the included
(sub-)documents refer to the same illustrations. The illustrations all
go into one file of their own.

This results in several advantages: one image can be repeatedly cited
and still easily found; the whole run of illustrations can be printed on
a different paper stock; it eliminates problems from Word's shoddy text
flow algorithms that routinely ram illustrations into the margins and
separate them from their captions.

The question is, how should I insert the cross-references?

One way is the following: Insert the illustrations (the source
document) in the main document (the target) via an IncludeText field.
If you want an easy way to exclude the illustrations as you print the
target document, just put a section break before the IncludeText
field.

To insert the field: Place the insertion point at the desired
location and, on the Insert menu, click File. Locate the source. Click
the arrow next to the Insert button, and choose to "Insert as Link".
With field codes displayed (use Alt+F9 as a toggle), the field will
look something like this:
{ INCLUDETEXT "C:\\folder1\\folder2\\...\\folderN\\filename. doc" }.

If you created your captions via InsertReferenceCaption, you can use
InsertReferenceCross-Reference to cross-reference the captions in
the inserted document. However, since inserting cross-references
modifies the referenced text, you have to place the cursor inside it
and press Ctrl+Shift+F7 to save the changes to the source document.

If you don't want to save the source, you can bookmark the relevant
entries with the target document closed, and then open the target,
update the IncludeText field and create the cross-references (to
bookmarks).

If you don't want to insert the illustrations, you can reference the
bookmarks directly, instead, from the source file. But that means one
IncludeText field for each cross-reference, and if you ever need to
move the files to a different location, there will be a lot of field
codes to edit (since relative paths are not allowed, as far as I
know).

For more about IncludeText fields, see Word Help and
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"anon k" wrote in message
...
I'm trying to assemble a large document, and many of the included
(sub-)documents refer to the same illustrations. The illustrations
all
go into one file of their own.

This results in several advantages: one image can be repeatedly
cited
and still easily found; the whole run of illustrations can be
printed on
a different paper stock; it eliminates problems from Word's shoddy
text
flow algorithms that routinely ram illustrations into the margins
and
separate them from their captions.

The question is, how should I insert the cross-references?

Stefan Blom wrote:
One way is the following: Insert the illustrations (the source
document) in the main document (the target) via an IncludeText field.
If you want an easy way to exclude the illustrations as you print the
target document, just put a section break before the IncludeText
field.

A good idea, thanks! It is unfortunately a lot of work for a set of
chapters that will undergo a lot of changes, especially since all I want
to insert is a small reference like "Figure 19".

I've started to wonder whether this particular project might be better
handled using LaTEX instead.

But there must be some way that publishers of e.g. art books get around
this difficulty. I have to wonder if I'm just looking at Word in the
wrong way.

Hi anon

anon k wrote:
it eliminates problems from Word's shoddy text
flow algorithms that routinely ram illustrations into the margins and
separate them from their captions.

If you don't need the illustrations to float behind/before the text
layer (i.e., it suffices to have an illustration in its own paragraph
and the caption in the following paragraph), you can easily instruct
Word to never separate these. And the illustration layout will be
rock-solid that way.

[Yes, you will have to manually paginate in the end if you cannot live
with some empty areas on the bottom of pages, but then, if you cannot,
maybe LaTeX _is_ better indeed; of course, if you do that, you wouldn't
want to separate the text and the graphics at all, I reckon.]

HTH
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

Robert M. Franz (RMF) wrote:
Hi anon

anon k wrote:

it eliminates problems from Word's shoddy text
flow algorithms that routinely ram illustrations into the margins and
separate them from their captions.


If you don't need the illustrations to float behind/before the text
layer (i.e., it suffices to have an illustration in its own paragraph
and the caption in the following paragraph), you can easily instruct
Word to never separate these. And the illustration layout will be
rock-solid that way.

[Yes, you will have to manually paginate in the end if you cannot live
with some empty areas on the bottom of pages, but then, if you cannot,
maybe LaTeX _is_ better indeed; of course, if you do that, you wouldn't
want to separate the text and the graphics at all, I reckon.]

HTH
Robert

You're right, in this case, the illustrations don't need to float.

But because several illustrations will be referred to in multiple
chapters, I'd prefer in this case to put all of them into a completely
separate document so that the reader doesn't need to look too hard to
find them, and to avoid duplicating them without need. This will also
allow them to be easily diverted for printing on separate paper stock
and on a different printer.

I'm honestly surprised that Word isn't set up to easily insert
cross-references to a caption in a separate document. (I'm using Word
XP by the way - not sure if that matters in this case.)

It also became evident today that Word's pagination doesn't have a
provision to automatically insert blank pages to fill out the last text
quire before the illustration quire begins. But a manual repagination
will deal with that when the time comes.

I guess this just isn't the way Microsoft thinks books should be made
these days.

Hi anaon

anon k wrote:
I'm honestly surprised that Word isn't set up to easily insert
cross-references to a caption in a separate document. (I'm using Word
XP by the way - not sure if that matters in this case.)

I'd probably use the last option Stefan has described: bookmark all
captions in the graphics document and cross-reference to those from the
main document.


It also became evident today that Word's pagination doesn't have a
provision to automatically insert blank pages to fill out the last text
quire before the illustration quire begins. But a manual repagination
will deal with that when the time comes.

Hmm, if you keep everything in different documents anyway, this should
not matter, should it? All you can tell Word is to begin a new section
on an even or an odd page, but that won't help you if you need multiples
of 4, 8, 16, etc.

This is more a task for imposition software, I'd wager.


I guess this just isn't the way Microsoft thinks books should be made
these days.

Hmm, I doubt Microsoft spends too much time thinking of Word as a means
to produce books, these days.

Both you and me would hope it was otherwise! ;-)

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

And the answer is: "Type them".

You cannot use cross-references outside the current document without
using a Master Document. If you use a master document, your troubles
are only just starting: it's a bad way to go.

Personally, I place my pictures inline with text, and in the position
they are required in the document. Then all the cross references
work.

Once you understand Word's picture placement mechanism, you won't have
problems with pictures moving out of place. The "secret" is to place
them all inline with text unless you absolutely require text either
side of them. If you must use floating pictures, make sure you know
where the anchor is and what will happen to it if you edit the
document.

In your case, you "could" use Picture Placeholders. Place a square
the correct size in your document at the correct position. Put a
caption on it, and cross-refer to that. After printing, you paste the
printed graphic over the top of it.

{Sigh} Thirty years of development to enable Word to automatically
handle pictures correctly, and the users go back to the pre-computer
methods of paste pot and scissors, rather than spend 20 minutes in the
Help looking up how to do this... :-)

Hope this helps

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 18:21:18 GMT, anon k wrote:

I'm trying to assemble a large document, and many of the included
(sub-)documents refer to the same illustrations. The illustrations all
go into one file of their own.

This results in several advantages: one image can be repeatedly cited
and still easily found; the whole run of illustrations can be printed on
a different paper stock; it eliminates problems from Word's shoddy text
flow algorithms that routinely ram illustrations into the margins and
separate them from their captions.

The question is, how should I insert the cross-references?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410