Cross reference in Publisher workround? (WIN)

[Jeffjn]

I've read a number of posts about the (lack of) the ability to cross reference to another part of a book. In Page Plus you could cross reference to headings or anchors, but all I can see in AP is cross reference to the previous or next text frame.

I'm converting a book (a software manual/tutorial that is updated every year) from PP to AP - each chapter consists of a set of autoflowed text frames on subsequent pages. I want to make updating the book easy to do each year. Is there a workround that anyone has discovered? Individual indexes?

Alternatives seem to be manually adding the cross references, which will need to be updated every time I add a page to the book, or referring the reader to the index.

OR... what I love to know is if cross referencing will be expanded to include at least headings in the near future.

From Page Plus:

[PaulEC]

I'd strongly suggest that you carry on using PagePlus until APub catches up!
That's what I'm having to do with projects needing Mail Merge and for some PDF file editing.

[Jeffjn]

Humm, thanks Paul. Sadly, I rather stupidly began converting the book with new content in AP (so I can edit the screenshots natively) and now I'm stuck between workflows.

[walt.farrell]

Workaround: For each cross-reference, create a pair of small text frames.

The first will be added to the source page, where you might have, for example, "See page <whatever>". You will Pin that frame inline, to contain the page number (the "<whatever>" part of the reference).

The second will be Pinned to the target page, at the reference spot. This frame will be empty.

Link the two frames, so the first would flow into the second. Then, in the first, use Text > Insert > Fields > Next Frame Page Number.

You could probably create the pair of frames, with content in the first frame, and make them an Asset. But you would then need to drag the second frame onto the proper page, which may be tricky.

[Jeffjn]

Thank you Walt, that's great suggestion. I'll try it out later today :-)

[Jeffjn]

Yes, I've understood and it works! Thanks for that.I'll keep the references to a minimum for now, as it's a bit fiddly, and keep my fingers crossed that this is on the roadmap!

Much appreciated :-)

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

And yes, it's fiddly to setup, and I also hope that Serif is working on real cross-references

[Gatada]

Serif linked to your reply when I asked for inline cross-references - appears that this is now the "official" workaround.

The lack of this feature is puzzling, to say the least.

Anyway, thanks Walt. I might give it a try..

[Christian5]

Ich habe diesen Tipp als kleines Video gezeigt.
Es ist hier zu finden:

I have shown this tip as a small video, it can be found here:

 

[Jeffjn]

On 10/1/2019 at 9:43 AM, PaulEC said:

I'd strongly suggest that you carry on using PagePlus until APub catches up!
That's what I'm having to do with projects needing Mail Merge and for some PDF file editing.

EXACTLY THREE YEARS LATER 🙂

I appreciate the video showing the workround, but I really think Affinity should be implementing this feature properly by now.

[PaulEC]

Well, Serif are now working on v2 of the Affinity software, so anything is possible!

[Seikilos]

One thing that seems impossible with the workaround is cross referencing the chapter number of a chapter created by a heading number.

[walt.farrell]

36 minutes ago, Seikilos said:

One thing that seems impossible with the workaround is cross referencing the chapter number of a chapter created by a heading number.

I'm not sure what you mean. Can you provide an example?

[Seikilos]

Sure. In Word I have corss references like "And how this is done was demonstrated in Chapter <Reference>4.7</Reference>."

When I update chapters, the 4.7 gets changed to 5.7 or 4.7.1 or whatever and the ref gets updated. Since it is not a reference to a page, the workaround with text boxes seems to be not applicable

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, Seikilos said:

Sure. In Word I have corss references like "And how this is done was demonstrated in Chapter <Reference>4.7</Reference>."

When I update chapters, the 4.7 gets changed to 5.7 or 4.7.1 or whatever and the ref gets updated. Since it is not a reference to a page, the workaround with text boxes seems to be not applicable

Thanks. That helps, but what did you mean about a chapter number being created by a heading number?

[Seikilos]

Quote

1. Introduction

2. Basic Operations

2.1 Move Semantics

In the text I will write something like "How move semantics works is explained in Chapter <Ref>2.1</Ref>

In APub you wouldn't type the number when you are creating the chapter titles, you would use a heading text style that has enabled the bullet and numbering option to automatically create the chapter numbers for you but this has a side effect: I cannot copy the number like 2.1 from the chapter itself and insert it somewhere, I always have to type it to create my "manual" reference to it. Not a big thing but it adds a bit of friction and might introduce more errors like mistyping 2.1 and writing 2,1 instead.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Seikilos said:

In the text I will write something like "How move semantics works is explained in Chapter <Ref>2.1</Ref>

In APub you wouldn't type the number when you are creating the chapter titles, you would use a heading text style that has enabled the bullet and numbering option to automatically create the chapter numbers for you but this has a side effect: I cannot copy the number like 2.1 from the chapter itself and insert it somewhere, I always have to type it to create my "manual" reference to it. Not a big thing but it adds a bit of friction and might introduce more errors like mistyping 2.1 and writing 2,1 instead.

Thanks. I agree that the workaround doesn't help with that situation.

[Gianni Becattini]

Did V2 give a way to solve this (incredible) problem?

[Jeffjn]

It doesn't seem to have. The "Crossreference" feature appears to to be the same. It was the first thing I checked!

[Gianni Becattini]

I am using V2 now, but for now I didn't find big improvements and a bug (no labels on row/columns in tables).

But something yes: for example, my large documents load much, much faster. Beside marketing considerations, just this is a good reason to update.

[MikeTO]

5 hours ago, Gianni Becattini said:

I am using V2 now, but for now I didn't find big improvements and a bug (no labels on row/columns in tables).

But something yes: for example, my large documents load much, much faster. Beside marketing considerations, just this is a good reason to update.

The "no labels on row/columns in tables" has a temporary workaround (toggle default/large UI font in UI preferences) so at least it's not a showstopper.

There are some major improvements in Publisher but cross references isn't one of them. Footnotes and Books are huge but of course not everybody needs them. I'm just happy to have word count. 🙂 

Here's the what's new list for Publisher (scroll down and click New Features)

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/full-feature-list/

[Gianni Becattini]

17 hours ago, MikeTO said:

The "no labels on row/columns in tables" has a temporary workaround (toggle default/large UI font in UI preferences) so at least it's not a showstopper.

If the software would be stable, maybe. But with it that crashes continuously, you must do the workaround every time you restart. Not so comfortable...

And having not a practical way to reference a page even in V2 is simply awkward.

But now I am the trap and I look forward, hoping in at least a new release soon for the multiple bugs. Two difficult now to go back to V1, I am too far.

For new projects, with my endless pain, the solution could only be the hated Adobe.

I can understand the poor developers (I used to be a software developer for most of my life). But releasing a beta software as production was not a genial decision...

 

[Christian5]

On 10/1/2022 at 10:25 AM, PaulEC said:

Well, Serif are now working on v2 of the Affinity software, so anything is possible!

Auch in V2 zwei sind Querverweise nicht realisiert. Schwaches Bild!

Cross-references are also not realised in V2 two. Weak image!