Changing Word cross references (Word 2000)

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I’m using extensive cross references in a legal doc template. Sometimes the targets for the cross references need to be systematically changed (such as when a clause gets removed or broken into a number of sub-clauses).
Ideally I’d like to be able to go through the old cross references one by one and create a new appropriate cross-reference (like changing the references to clause 4 to become references to 4.1 or 4.2 etc.).
Word lets me do a find on fields but it only seems to work when the field codes are revealed – then I can’t easily tell what the reference was to. If I could do a Find/Replace on specific fields (e.g. find all references to clause 4 (even if clause 4 no longer exists)) that would be great.

I’ve searched Microsoft’s KB to no avail. Can anyone help?

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Try this on a copy of the original document.

1. Delete the old provision (in your example, clause 4) along with the bookmark (if any) attached to the old provision which the cross-reference uses.
2. Update all Fields in the document.
3. All references to the deleted portion should show up as errors in Bold. (Error! Reference source not found.).
4. Open the original and change the fields where change is required.
5. An easy way to update all fields is to print the whole document to file with Update Fields checkbox (in the Tools| Options| Print ) checked. You need not even finish the print.

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An even quicker way to update all fields is to press Ctrl-A (select all) then F9 (update fields).

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Thanks for the reply:

I use , to update all the fields.

The problem is that we’re talking big documents here so the key thing is being able to search easily through all the fields in the document for just those that are in error (or ideally which reference a particular heading or clause so I can change them before removing or altering the clause).

I can go through all the fields using the special ^d search character in Find/Replace but this only works when the field codes are displayed and when that is the case I can’t tell what the fields refer to.

I need to be able to ‘Find all cross reference fields that are in error’ or ‘find all fields that refer to clause x’.

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It might be worth using the object browser (the dot button between the page up/down arrows on the scroll bar. You can select between several types of objects including fields – it looks like {a}. From experience the object browser will scroll from field to field, it even stops at fields which do not appear in any other form.

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That is very handy. I’d never noticed that button before. Still less than ideal when you have hundreds of fields. I think I’m going to have to write a macro

Cheers,
Paul

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Hi Whippy:

You can do a find on only specific cross-references. However, you need to know something about the name of your cross reference. For example, if the cross reference to a bookmarked clause is
{ ref clause4 }, you can turn on field codes & search for:

^19 ref clause4

This will find only fields that start with that name (i.e. it will find references to clause4_1 or 411, etc.).

Hope this helps.

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Thanks Phil,

In my Word 2000 documents the cross references appear as { REF _Ref525725020 r h } and, what is worse the _RefXXXXXXXXXXX key varies for the same cross reference.

Searching as you suggest does not appear to work.

Cheers,
Paul

The reference is obscure

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