Editor's Note:  I recently needed to insert some cross-references into a Word document, but couldn't for the life of me remember how I'd done it the last time (ca 6 months ago). Herewith an aide memoire...for anyone in the same boat...and for me the next time the need arises !

Inserting Cross-References into a WORD Document that Render to .pdf Correctly

Introduction

Those of us who use MS Word regularly to author documents which we then need to render to PDF versions for posting online, will no doubt have come across this problem before.....

In a nutshell, what’s the best way to generate cross references within your text to figures and other items in different sections of the document such that:

a) You can control the text you want to see displayed at that point and

b) You can ensure that the same text gets transferred properly into the .pdf  version when you render it and

c) the links actually work !

Easy, you might think – just use WORD's cross-reference Insert menu option. And you’d be right, but therein lies a snag….

The only options WORD will give you when entering a direct cross-reference is to use either a heading, a numbered item, a bookmark, a footnote, an endnote or an equation. You may not want to number all your referenced items; you could just use the heading option and refer to a heading for each figure or section, but if you do this, word will only let you insert the full text of the heading, which is often clumsy; if you use the number option, the result will probably not mean much to your reader. And you’re probably also unlikely to have any of the last 4 items in the list in your document to call on.

To cut a long story short, the best way I’ve found of giving yourself control of what text is displayed at each cross-reference point, and of where WORD will go to in the text when you click the link there, is to use bookmarks in conjunction with cross-references.

How on earth do I do that ? I hear you ask...Read on to find out…..

Using Bookmarks as Cross-Reference Points

The first thing you’ll need to do is to set up a list of bookmarks within your document corresponding to the positions you want your cross-references to link to (e.g. in our case, Figure Titles):

1)      Move your cursor to the first position in the document where you want the link to transfer you to (e.g. Figure 1: First image).

2)      Highlight any of the text you want to appear at the link’s position (e.g 'Figure 1' in our example) when you generate your cross-reference. This is important as it allows you to have some control over what appears in your text when you add the reference, and cut out anything you don't need. (If you don’t select any text at this point, you’ll get a cross-reference, but nothing will be added to the text to show your reader where it is.)

3)      Now select the ‘Bookmark’ option from the ‘Insert’ Menu.

4)      Add a name for your bookmark - e.g 'Fig1'. NB this name must not contain any spaces or special characters. You can either name the bookmark in a meaningful way to identify it when selecting it as a target for a cross-reference, or just use a simple numbered list e.g bk1, bk2, etc. This name won’t appear at your cross reference point, so don't worry about it being consistent with your bookmark text.

5)      Click the ‘Add’ button. The new bookmark should now appear in the list, and will have the text you highlighted associated with it. You can now either continue adding new bookmarks or exit the option.

6)      To complete the jigsaw, you need to add your cross-references. To do this:

7)      Move to the position in your text where you want the first cross-reference to appear. Don’t highlight any text before doing this – if you do it will be replaced by whatever text the bookmark you choose for it contains. Now select the ‘Cross-reference’ option from the ‘Insert’ menu.

8)      Ensure that ‘Bookmark’ is selected in the right hand box and ‘Bookmark Text’ appears in the left hand box. If it is, you should see a list of the bookmarks you’ve already created.

9)      Select the appropriate bookmark entry (e.g. 'Fig1') and click the Insert button. WORD should create the cross-reference for you and will insert at that point whatever text you originally selected when you created that Bookmark (in our example it would be 'Figure 1').

10)   You can now continue adding more cross-references or exit the option.

11)   Tip: One additional item that I find from experience can help visibility in the final document is to change the font colour for the text displayed at the cross-reference points (e.g. 'hyperlink blue'). This will highlight the link positions for your readers.

Final Words

If you set up cross-references as described above, they, and their associated text, should carry over into the .pdf documents after rendering.

Please note, though, that you cannot edit bookmarks once you’ve creating them. If you wish to change the text associated with them or their position in the document, you need to delete the original bookmark and recreate it. You’ll also need to recreate any cross-references which referred to it. Thus it’s important to select the text you want when originally creating the bookmark.

Please note also that the rendering process may not transfer any font changes you may have made to highlight the cross-references.

Happy Cross-Referencing……

First published 25.6.25