Creating dynamic references to a changing list of appendices

Question

I'm currently writing a document which will ultimately have a large number of appendices at the end, but the final number and ordering of the appendices won't be clear until almost the very end of the process. I would like to start adding appendix references within to the main body of the document now (eg "Please refer to 'Appendix D: The Cat Sat on the Mat' for a specific example of this"). However, if I do this using just plain text, my appendix letter references (eg Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C) in the main body of my document will soon become out-of-sync with my actual appendix letter assignations. For example, my original Appendix D may later become Appendix E if I insert a new additional appendix above the original Appendix D; and that will render incorrect any plain-text references I've already made to "Appendix D" in my main section.

I'm assuming that there must be some way to create dynamic headings for, and in-text references to, these appendices. Ideally, I would like two things to happen any time I add a new appendix above pre-existing appendix/ces. Firstly, the subsequent appendices' headings should automatically update (eg, the heading 'Appendix D' will automatically change to 'Appendix E'; the heading 'Appendix E' will automatically change to 'Appendix F'; etc). Secondly, any references I've made to, say, 'Appendix D' in the text of the main section, should automatically turn into to 'Appendix E', etc.

I've had a look online but can't seem to find the exact steps required to make this happen. It might have something to do with table of contents and/or headings settings (both of which I'm very rusty on), but the articles and answers I've looked at so far seem to begin at the halfway point, when half of the steps I need to know have already been undertaken. Does anybody know how I could proceed with this? Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

To begin with, you need to use autonumbering for the appendix titles. Ideally, you will use one of Word's built-in heading styles for these paragraphs (if you have used the top heading levels for other headings in the document, you can use lower-level styles for the appendixes; see http://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numberingappendixes.html). In the Define New Multilevel List dialog, select A, B, C numbering to link to your heading style and type "Appendix" before the number field in the "Enter formatting for number" box.

You can then use References | Captions | Cross-reference to insert a cross-reference. If you used a built-in heading style for the appendix titles, select "Heading" as the "Reference type" and "Heading number" for "Insert reference to."  If you haven't used a built-in heading style, you can still use cross-references, but you will have to first bookmark the heading, then insert a cross-reference to the bookmark. Cross-references don't update dynamically, as numbered paragraphs do, but they do update automatically when you update other fields, as by printing or switching to Print Preview.

Answer 2

Thank you for your help. I've been making some headway, also using the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohONwESuLo for help. However, I am still finding it difficult to insert a reference to a full appendix title (by which I mean, "Appendix D - The Cat Sat on the Mat" rather than just "Appendix D -" or "The Cat Sat on the Mat") It seems I can do so by inserting two cross-references one after the other, the first to 'paragraph number' and the second to 'paragraph text', with a space manually added in between. This seems inefficient though. Is there a way of including the whole title in a single cross-reference?

I'm also finding that any insertions of 'paragraph text' cross-references (eg, "The Cat sat on the Mat") don't conform to the formatting of the paragraph around them in font size; the cross-reference text comes out larger than the surrounding paragraph. However, insertions of 'paragraph number' cross-references (eg, "Appendix D -") do conform to the surrounding paragraph's formatting, even though the original referenced "Appendix D - " heading text has different formatting (italicised and bolded in the heading, vs standard formatting in the paragraph). I'm not sure why the two cross-reference types are treated differently in this regard. I'm also finding that even if I manually change the formatting of an overly-large 'paragraph text' cross-reference, if I later need to update that cross-reference field to reflect changes to my appendix list, it goes back to the incorrect formatting again.

All this means that to insert a single cross-reference, I'm having to do all this:

1. Insert a 'paragraph number' cross-reference for the desired appendix (eg, "Appendix D -")
2. Add a space manually
3. Insert a 'paragraph text' cross-reference for the same appendix (eg, "The Cat sat on the Mat')
4. Change the formatting of the 'paragraph text' cross-reference to match its surrounding paragraph (by reducing font size).
5. Additionally, whenever I need to update all fields to 'sync' my cross-references to my updated appendix list, I need to manually find my 'paragraph text' cross-references again and update their formatting again (by reducing font size again), to make them match their surrounding paragraphs again.

I'm hoping that there are ways to get around some/all of this! It hardly seems worth it to proceed with this if the above steps can't be cut down.

Answer 3

Step 4 shouldn't be necessary unless you have applied direct formatting to your headings. Direct formatting is formatting that you have applied by selecting text and changing text properties via the ribbon or the Font dialog box for example. Instead, apply heading styles to text and modify the styles as needed.

Answer 4

I'm not sure whether or not I've done that aspect correctly. What I did was this: I created a new heading style for appendix headings via Home --> Styles --> [arrow] --> Create a Style, and added some formatting to the style's numbering via Home --> Paragraph --> Multilevel List --> Define New Multilevel List. If I recall correctly, this caused correct formatting for the "Appendix A -" part of a given appendix title, but the next part of a given title (eg "The Cat sat on the Mat") came up in a different format. I therefore added further formatting to the new style by going to Home --> Styles --> [right-click the new style] --> Modify. That made the full title of each appendix (eg "Appendix A - The Cat sat on the Mat") consistently and correctly formatted. However, then came the steps 4 and 5 issues mentioned above. Weirdly enough, the 'bad' formatting of certain cross-references embedded within paragraphs, is not the same formatting as that which I set for that part of the style via Home --> Styles --> Modify. I set that part of the headings to be bolded and italicised, size 10, but the cross-references come up as non-bolded (good) and non-italicised (good), but size 11 (bad), even though the surrounding paragraph is size 10. (Hope this makes sense.)

(Edited as my initial description was a bit inaccurate at the end.)

Answer 5

By default, the numbering of an autonumbered style will match the font formatting of the style. Applying direct formatting to the heading paragraph will also affect the formatting of the paragraph number and may be propagated to the cross-reference.