• I do not know how the person who prepared the original document inserted the hyperlinks; all I can see is, that the tool-tip for each of his cross-references starts file:///
• the target headings appear to have been numbered by hand – the style definition has None for numbering, and the Outline level is set to Body text. Neither of the Numbering icons in the toolbar is active, and I can use Backspace to delete the number
• according to the Apply styles panel, the Hyperlink style is applied to all the original hyperlinks: they show as blue, underlined

To set up my cross-reference, I started by defining a bookmark. Then I added a cross-reference: reference type, bookmark; insert reference to Bookmark text; insert as hyperlink
According to the Apply styles panel, the Hyperlink style is applied to the new cross-reference: but it shows as black, no underline. The tool-tip is the bookmark name.

Applying the same style to all links and seeing the same formatting would be a good start!

OK, you are using cross-references. Note that cross-references will never look like hyperlinks; they always look like ordinary text, even if they are hyperlinked.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

A few experiments further, it seems that Word has indeed decided I don't want to see the visible characteristics of the Hyperlink style on my cross-references … even though the Font panel says they are being applied! [no screenshot, because corporate policies block Dropbox; I'll try and add one later]

I'm not impressed. I think I'm old enough to decide for myself what visible clues I want to give my readers. Also, if examining formats tells me certain properties are set then those are the properties the document should display.

What you can do is add the \* CHARFORMAT switch to your REF fields and then format the field code in the desired color (but not using the Hyperlink style, which won't work, as you have seen). However, this will be time-consuming.

As Paul suggested, you could rethink this and use actual hyperlinks instead, assuming that you don't need the updated text of a cross-reference.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Thanks, Stefan – I have indeed given up on this and recreated the table with hyperlinks. There were too many other problems with using bookmarks …

OK, thank you for the follow-up.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional