Publisher newbie question: smart page-referencing

[Science]

I haven't purchased Publisher yet, but I'm thinking seriously about it. There's a perhaps-obscure feature I'm looking for in a layout program, and I'd like to know if it exists in Publisher:

I'm working on a book that contains a large number of internal references, such as "For more on Orbital Eccentricity, see page __." There's at least one of these references on every page of the manuscript (currently 180 pages), sometimes several per page. What I would love to be able to do is to link that blank to a particular paragraph later in the book, and then no matter where that paragraph ends up, the page number will update automatically.

Because if I have to update all the page references every time I add or delete information and the book repaginates, I'll go mad.

Is this something Publisher can do? Is there ANY layout app that does this?

Thanks in advance,

Science (Montreal)

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Science

As far as I know Publisher doesn’t have real ‘(cross) reference marks’ yet but they have been requested quite a few times.
Doing a quick search for “reference” (without the quotes) would have given you the answer, and some workarounds:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/98893-cross-reference-in-publisher-workround-win/
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/142533-reference-to-page-number-in-a-textfield/
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/120048-cross-reference-support/
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/141802-references-in-publisher/
Etc. Etc.

[lacerto]

(...)

[Science]

Many thanks! Very helpful.

[iconoclast]

Because linking will, of course, not work in a print project, your project will be screen related, and you would possibly find what you are searching for in an e-book-editor (like f.e. Calibre), office suite or another sort of software. If your project is meant for screen only, you do not need a fixed layout. It would rather be inconvenient for the users. On Linux, there are some programs that could possibly do what you are looking for. For no cost at all. You could even write your project in HTML, CSS and javascript. But that would, of course, be much more work.

[Science]

Thank you, iconoclast. I was not referring to active hyperlinks, so my use of the term 'link' was confusing. I was referring to dynamic cross-references (that are only dynamic while I'm working on the book -- not when it is published.)

Even though Publisher does not yet have dynamic cross-references, I will probably purchase the whole app suite anyway, because it looks very good, and I no longer wish to be a slave to Adobe.

Since asking my question I have realized that I don't really need to cross-reference by page numbers. I plan to number all my section headings and sub-headings, so I can simply use those for cross-referencing. More precise anyway, and they will not change constantly while I'm working on the layout.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Science said:

Even though Publisher does not yet have dynamic cross-references, I will probably purchase the whole app suite anyway, because it looks very good, and I no longer wish to be a slave to Adobe.

It does have them, but as discussed in the topics that provide more information/workarounds they are cumbersome to use.