Cross reference - reference type fields disappeared

Question

Hi everyone, I desperately need urgent help.

I am writing my masters thesis and finally thought I had finished. I created an autotext field which automatically inserts a table where I can place an equation and it is automatically numbered. I can then cross reference the equation using the unique tag which i labelled "eq", this would appear in the cross reference drop down. I edited the document and accepted all changes and then selected all and updated all the fields by pressing F9. I noticed some of the cross references showed a reference error and when I tried to re reference it, the unique equation field I had was no longer in the drop down. I also noted in the citation dialog that all my unique tags I created had disappeared.

I cant find anyway to retrieve the information. only a few of the cross references showed errors, but I dont know how to cross reference the ones that display errors without redoing all the equations or referencing manually..

Please help

Answer 1

As Suzanne wrote, you will have to recreate the caption label (because the each label is saved in the Normal template, not in the specific documents where you are using it).

However, a missing caption label shouldn't cause any trouble with existing cross-references, and therefore we need more information. For example, what is the exact message that you see?

Also, note that you can create cross-references even if the caption label is missing. Just enclose the piece of text in a bookmark and create the cross-reference to bookmark text.

Answer 2

Custom caption labels are stored in the Normal template. If you are moving this document from one machine to another, the "eq" caption label (and hence the cross-references) will not be present until it is created on that machine and stored in that copy of Normal.dotm.

Answer 3

Thank you Stefan, The error message I was getting was "Error! Reference source not found." I recreated the caption label and the numbering labels returned to the cross reference dialogue, I then deleted the messages and cross referenced them again. What is frustrating is that all my caption labels I created disappeared even though I worked off the same computer and same document. Something must have happened after updating the document links.

Answer 4

Thank you Suzanne. I recreated the caption label and it restored the cross references.

Answer 5

Hello,

Please provide us more information before we proceed.

1. What exact error message are you receiving when you try to update references?
2. Does this issue occurs if the reference is deleted and re-created?

Please post back with the information asked for further assistance.

Thank you.