There is an easier way to change the cross reference text. Simply edit the text that the cross reference inserted. In my case, I wanted the name of the hyperlink to be the name of a document that I specified in a table. This is what I did to accomplish that:
1) I create a cross reference to the Table with the "Insert reference to:" box set to Entire caption.
2) I then highlighted the middle text of the hyperlink that was created and pasted the name of my document. Note that I highlighted the middle text of the hyperlink because I found that if I highlighted the entire text, the paste would remove the hyperlink field.
3) I deleted the first and last characters of the old hyperlink text, and now my hyperlink is the document name that I wanted.



It would be nice if Microsoft allowed us to specify the hyperlink text in the Cross-reference dialog box, but editing the text is no too difficult

But note that manual changes will be lost when you update the cross-reference field.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Thanks for the info about updating the cross reference removing my edits, but when would one need to update a cross reference? I find that the cross reference correctly points to the table as I make changes to the document.

Well, if a cross-reference points to content/text, you want to update it if the source changes. If a cross-reference points to a paragraph or page number, you want to update it if the source paragraph has been renumbered or moved to another page (which may very well be the result of editing the document).

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional