nisus.com

I am just starting to use cross-references. I have them displaying as "bookmark name" so I can see them in the Bookmark list on the left. So let's say I have a cross-reference "Chicago", appearing at the end of a sentence, "Programs in large cities provide a variety of examples. Chicago. ", and referring to text further on in the same document. But the bookmarked text just appears like regular text:

"Programs in large cities provide a variety of examples. Chicago. Researchers have found..." [may Harland Dorrinson protect me from ever writing such dull sentences for real.]

This looks, typographically to the eye, like some kind of error, and six months from now I may not remember (if I am not viewing the Bookmarks list) that this actually IS a cross reference.

So the first of my questions concern formatting, but I have others too.
1. how can I format the visible cross-reference text so it has its own identity, and
2. Same question for the target of the cross-ref. and
3. While clicking on "Chicago" takes me to the target, I can't click on the target and be returned to my previous spot. Can the link be made to go both ways?
4. If, later in this document, I want to make another cross-reference to the paragraph about Chicago, will I have to choose another word in that paragraph to be the clickable cross-ref representation?

Thanks.

Cross-references are supposed to take on the formatting of the text they are inserted into.
But in the preferences under appearances you can adjust the way they are visible. The default is that they are hidden but you can toggle them on.

editor10 wrote: ↑2020-09-10 21:36:13 1. how can I format the visible cross-reference text so it has its own identity, and
2. Same question for the target of the cross-ref.

Philip already covered question #1 and showed the preference that allows you to enable on-screen highlighting to show cross-references. The same section of the preferences can help you with question #2. The target of a cross-reference is a bookmark. To show them on screen you should show the coloring under Marked Text > Bookmarked. You probably want to enable both regular and automatically named bookmarks.

3. While clicking on "Chicago" takes me to the target, I can't click on the target and be returned to my previous spot. Can the link be made to go both ways?

If you select the bookmarked (targeted) text you can return to your cross-reference in a variety of ways. If you know there's only a single cross-reference using the bookmark, you can activate the command Select Cross-References. That's available via the main menu under Insert > Bookmarks or the contextual menu Bookmark References. But if there are multiple cross-references you should probably use the command Find All Cross-References to show a list of them, so you can jump to the correct one.

I also want to mention that if you just recently moved from your cross-reference to the bookmarked text (eg: to do some minor editing) and want to return, it's probably faster to just rewind through your selection history. That is, press the "Back" button on the toolbar a few times.

4. If, later in this document, I want to make another cross-reference to the paragraph about Chicago, will I have to choose another word in that paragraph to be the clickable cross-ref representation?

I'm not sure I understand exactly, but it sounds like you're asking if you need to create another bookmark (cross-reference target). If so, that's not necessary. You can use an existing bookmark any number of times to create unlimited cross-references. The cross-references don't even have to display the same information, eg: one can show the page number while another shows the bookmarked text.