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Formatting Cross references into blue colour in Word 2016 for Mac

Anonymous
2018-09-06T08:53:54+00:00

Hello,

I am using Word 2016 for mac

i would like to do the following: I have a long manuscript with dozens of figures, tables and appendixes.

I cross-referenced them extensively inside the manuscript and formatted the cross references manually with blue colour.

When i click "update all", however, the colour goes back to black, as the original text. Isn´t there a way to pre-format all cross-references in the text with a given font colour so that it applies to all cross-refernces ( tables, figure, appendix)?

Thanks for your help!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 435K Reputation points
    2018-09-06T13:42:23+00:00

    I don't know of any way to "pre-format" Fields of any type, but the other obstacle is the use of direct formatting. That's what is being removed when updating the fields because the update process essentially recreates the fields based on current information.

    What you want can be done by applying a Character Style that incorporates the color. The process can be expedited using Advanced Find & Replace rather than going through the document manually. [Not being a coder I can't speak to whether a macro can be used to fully automate the process.]

    This procedure works fine here:

    1. First, you need to define a Character Style or use/modify one of the built-in Character Styles, such as Mention, Intense Reference or Subtle Emphasis - they incorporate the blue font color.
    2. Display the Field Codes [Option+F9]
    3. In Edit> Find> Advanced Find & Replace:
      • Enter ^d (or choose Field from the Special button menu) for Find what
      • Leave the Replace with field blank but expand the dialog window if necessary, then click the Format button. Select Style from the dropdown menu, then choose the Style to be applied.
      • Confirm that none of the boxes are checked.
      • Click Replace All unless there are other types of fields used in the document... If there are other types of fields in the document that shouldn't be formatted that way you'll need to walk through using Find Next/Replace rather than using Replace All.
    4. When done use Option+F9 to toggle off the display of Field Codes.

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  1. Charles Kenyon 166.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-09-06T12:27:14+00:00

    I know of no way to do this automatically. A macro might be possible, but I have been unable to come up with one.

    When you do it manually, though, if you display field codes you will see something like the following:

    { REF _Ref523981156 \h }

    If you change that to { REF _Ref523981156 \h \* CHARFORMAT } and then change the colour, to blue, then hide the field codes, when the field is updated, it will be blue.

    I would guess that this could be done with Word's Replace function, but I haven't been able to put that together.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-09-06T11:35:40+00:00

    Hi Hendrik Haenke,

    We are on Word for Mac version 16.16, and do not find the button “Update All” for cross-references. We can see a “Update Field” button when right-clicking a cross reference, is this what you are referring to?

    If not, in order to help you further, could you explain more details about “When i click "update all"” and provide the screenshot of it? At the same time, please provide the specific steps of your operation.

    At the same time, please also provide your Word version under Word > About Word.

    Regards,

    Sukie

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