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Cross reference to heading page numbers?


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My last document in InDesign had quite a lot of cross references (see page XX) and these were trivial to set up because I could choose a heading and the field put in the correct page number for that heading. As text reflowed, I didn't have to worry about manually going through and fixing up page references, with the associated chance of errors. 

Does Affinity have a similar feature? I couldn't spot it in the help documents or via google, but I could just be looking for the wrong terms!

(nb just to be clear, I'm not thinking about references in an index here, I'm thinking about references in the body of the text of a document)

Many thanks for advice.

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Yes, you can do that, using a couple of different methods.

The simplest, probably, is with hyperlinks and anchors, but this does not let you refer to "page xxx". You would need to provide some text, such as "see the section on gizmos" and "the section on gizmos" would be a link to the section of interest.

For that approach:

  1. At the Heading, put the text cursor on the heading and then Text > Interactive > Insert Anchor... and give it a name.,
  2. At the reference point, where you have type the reference ("see the section on ...", select the reference text, and Text > Interactive > Insert Hyperlink.... Chose Anchor as the type of Hyperlink, pick the anchor you want, and pick a style.

If you need "see page xxx" it's a bit harder:

  1. Type "see page ". Outside that text frame, draw another small text frame, just big enough for the page number. Into that text frame, Text > Insert > Fields > Next Frame Page Number.
  2. Create another small text frame. This one will remain empty.
  3. Click the linking arrow on the lower right of the first small frame, then click on the second small frame. Now they're linked.
  4. Drag the first small text frame so it's positioned after "see page ", and then Pin it inline.
  5. Drag the second small text frame to your heading, and pin it to the heading.

Here's an example of that second technique. There's a link from page 1 into the middle of page 4. I probably have a clearer example but I'm not finding it right now.

page-link.afpub

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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31 minutes ago, Wosven said:

Interesting trick Walt, I hope they'll implement a more robust and usable way to do references.

Thanks. I hope so, too.

The trick can be slightly simplified if it's needed frequently by making a pair of linked text frames, inserting the field in the first one, grouping them, and saving as an Asset. To use, you drag the Asset to a page, ungroup, position/pin the first frame, drag the second frame to the target location, and position/pin it.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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4 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

@walt.farrell You amaze me sometimes.

 

3 hours ago, Alfred said:

Only sometimes?? :o

For me it is only when I read his comments, continually learning from him.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks. I hope so, too.

The trick can be slightly simplified if it's needed frequently by making a pair of linked text frames, inserting the field in the first one, grouping them, and saving as an Asset. To use, you drag the Asset to a page, ungroup, position/pin the first frame, drag the second frame to the target location, and position/pin it.

Thanks, I’ll certainly give that a go - it sounds like a decent enough work-around for the moment. 

Cheers

Alex

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You're welcome.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 1 month later...

» Text > Interactive > Insert Hyperlink.... «

This creates – as it says – a hyperlink to the anchor. This is not a printable reference to the anchor text – you have to create a text, select it and place a hyperlink. This is handy in a pdf viewed on screen. In a printed book it is anoying to see, that there is a reference which I have to find by myself (no page no., not sure that the naming is the same). Therefore this method is useless for "living references" that show the current content of e.g. a headline or the text included in the anchor. Which is the required solution for documents lager than 10 pages (magazine, manual, …).

I am expect version 2 to offer this.

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