Cross References Using Find Replace

[binar]

Fellow Forum Members,
I have a 600 page manual done in Word 2007 with paragraph references that look like this: "blah blah, refer to Paragraph 5.4.3 "



The original creator of this book manually typed in the text, "Paragraph 5.4.3" all throughout the body of the manual and did not bother using the Insert -> Cross References.

My objective is to convert all 40 instances of the text, "Paragraph 5.4.3" to Cross References Fields using the Find/Replace Tool. Is this possible? If yes, how do I tell WORD to find each instance of the text, "Paragraph 5.4.3" and then replace it with a Cross Reference Field containing the special code needed that points it to a tagged Heading 3 paragraph with the number prefix of 5.4.3?

The alternative is to manually setup using each cross reference which is something I would like to avoid.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[macropod]

Hi Binar,

Insert a cross-reference anywhere in the document. Cut it (eg via Ctr-X) to the Clipboard, then do a Find/Replace where:
Find = Paragraph 5.4.3
Replace = ^c

[binar]

Originally Posted by macropod

Hi Binar,

Insert a cross-reference anywhere in the document. Cut it (eg via Ctr-X) to the Clipboard, then do a Find/Replace where:
Find = Paragraph 5.4.3
Replace = ^c

Macropod,
Thanks a million. Works like a charm. My hat is off to you. It's an ingenious solution that totally eluded me. I thought the REPLACE had to be equal to some kind of FIELD code. Never imagined that a field code value could be grabbed from the clipboard and applied all over a document.

In short, this trick is a tremendous time saver in my situation because I don't only "Paragraph 5.4.3' to change but a bunch of other paragraph number references that repeat all over the manual. I estimate I have at least 1,000 paragraph references to setup. Sure beats using the Cross Reference Dialog box and doing them one by one.

Again, thanks a million. Cheers.

[Ulodesk]

I am trying to replicate this. However, in creating the original cross-reference to the heading, Word keeps giving me a simple 0 as a field. I haven't experienced this before.

Thanks.

[macropod]

That may reflect the presence of some corruption in the document.

[tzachjade]

Originally Posted by macropod

Hi Binar,

Insert a cross-reference anywhere in the document. Cut it (eg via Ctr-X) to the Clipboard, then do a Find/Replace where:
Find = Paragraph 5.4.3
Replace = ^c

Hi Paul(or anyone else answering),

In regards to the original question, how do I change all *different* texts into different corresponding cross-references? E.g., I have a text originally written with plain text, like "see fig. 1", "see fig. 2," "see fig. 3," etc.
Then, later, I added the different the figures and captions themselves (since I do not know starting off the correct order in which I would eventually arrange these figures in). Now, how do I convert all the different original plain text "references" ("see fig. 1," etc.) into actual cross-references, each one linking the corresponding figure using find and replace, in the same manner as in your answer above?

Thanks in advance,
Tzach.

[macropod]

Originally Posted by tzachjade

how do I change all *different* texts into different corresponding cross-references?

You do them one at a time. Whilst a macro could be used, it would have to be pre-populated with each & every one of the cross-references that you want to use. Developing such a macro might well take longer than doing the process manually.