Displaying a Single Dynamic Page Number

[--em]

I have a sidenote that references the start of a section, for example, "See page 32." I'd like that page number in the sidenote to update dynamically as new content is added or changed and the pages reflow. (The referenced section won't always be on page 32…) I'm also curious to reference ranges of pages, such as "See pages 32-34."

Is there a way to do this currently? Thanks!

[walt.farrell]

Cross-references are supported, but in a cumbersome way, depending on how they're used. You'll find them in the online Help here.

In their current form they seem most useful when you have a story that is at the end of a text frame, and will continue on another page someplace else in the document, at the start of a new text frame. You can then put a "Next Frame Page Number" field at the end of the first frame. But it's more cumbersome if you're simply wanting to refer to some other object or to text in some random spot on another page.

For that, expanding on that Help description, you could:

1. Create a small text frame (I'll call it FA), just big enough to hold the page number. Create another (I'll call it FB), which can be smaller as it won't contain anything. Link them together. You may need to zoom in to see the linking triangle.
2. Double-click in frame FA, and use Text > Insert > Fields > Next Frame Page Number.
3. Where you want the reference, type your text "See page ."
4. Drag frame FA so it is just before the ".", then open the Pinning studio panel, and pin it Inline, scaled to the Pointsize. You may also need to adjust the Offset field to fix the alignment.
5. Now drag frame FB to the place you want to refer to, and pin it to the item (picture, word) that you're referring to.

If you needed to refer to a page range, and knew they were far enough apart to always remain on separate pages, you could create another pair of text frames and repeat the above to mark and refer to the ending point.

That's complex, in my opinion, for general cross-referencing. For that usage it would be more convenient to simply mark a piece of text or an object as a cross-reference point and then refer to it directly. Kind of a variant or enhancement of the existing Anchor functionality. I hope this will be improved over time. 

Until then, if you need to do this often, you could create FA and FB, link them, Group them, and create an Asset. To use the Asset, just drag it to your page and Ungroup, then position and pin each frame.

 

[--em]

Got it. Thank you, Walt! And clever idea with creating an asset out of those two text frames.

I also hope they improve this functionality in the future, but I suppose this will have to do for now.

Thanks so much!

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.