How to create a cross reference in Word

Let me introduce you to a cross reference in Word. Cross references allow us with a way to refer to another topic within your document and have Word link to it. Cross references allow users to easily navigate within a long document using links, just like you would on a website.

Below is a good example of a simple cross reference. You can see at the end of the paragraph the text (See File Formats on Page 15). The text “File Formats” and the page number are both links which can be clicked and links users through to the the particular heading or page number within the document. A cross reference in Word is essentially an internal link within a Word document.

Over the years, I have seen people manually create a cross reference, however using the built-in function provides you with several advantages:

• The reader will be able to click the cross reference link and Word will automatically move to the heading or page referenced. The reader will not need to scroll to locate the content;
• As the document is updated and headings or content potentially move to different pages, Word will automatically update any cross-references for you.

To create a cross reference in Word, follow these steps:

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. To open an existing document you want to use for this exercise, press Ctrl + F12 on the keyboard, the Open dialog box will appear, locate the file and select it, then click Open.
3. Move your cursor to the location you wish to insert the first cross reference.
4. If you want to type some text to make it easy to see where the reader should click, type the text now.
5. I’m going to put my cross-reference inside brackets as shown below however, you can format the cross reference however you like:

6. Click the References tab from the Ribbon.
7. Click the Cross-reference button within the Captions group:

8. The Cross-reference dialog box will appear:

9. You have the ability to include a cross-reference to several different reference types, including headings, footnotes, tables, numbered lists etc.
10. From the Reference type drop-down, select Heading.
11. You will see all the headings within the document where you have applied a “heading” style e.g. Heading 1, Heading 2 etc.
12. From the Insert reference to drop-down menu, select what you want to link to e.g. the actual heading text, the page number etc.
13. For this example choose Heading Text.
14. Now scroll through the For which heading list and locate the heading want to to cross reference to:

15. Click Insert.
16. Now I want to also include the page number so change the Insert reference to drop down menu to Page number and repeat the process to insert.
17. Click Close to return to your document.
18. You now have 2 x cross references included in the document:

19. Using the arrows on the keyboard, move the cursor between the heading text and the page number. You will see these two cross references will be displayed as a grey box so that you can identify them easily:

20. Between the two references, type the text on Page and put the final closing bracket if needed (I also formatted my second cross reference in italics text – how you format them is up to you):

21. If you hover your mouse over either cross reference, hold down the Ctrl key and click to follow the cross reference link.
22. Test your cross references are working correctly.
23. Don’t forget to save your changes, you can use Ctrl + S on the keyboard as a shortcut.

Update a cross reference in Word

Now that you have created a cross reference in Word, what happens when the content changes or moves to a different page? Word will display any error messages but you will need to update the cross references to update the link to the new location and to display the new page number.

1. Locate the heading you are using as the cross reference. E.g. File Formats.
2. Make a change to the heading.
3. Scroll back to the cross reference for the heading.
4. Right-mouse click the cross reference and select Update Field:

5. The changes to the heading should now be reflected in the cross reference.
6. The same process works if a cross reference has moved to a different page number. Right-mouse click the cross referenced page number and choose Update Field. The page number will be updated.

What if you have multiple cross references in Word and you want to update them all at once? No problems.

1. Select the entire document using the shortcut Ctrl + A.
2. Then press F9 on the keyboard. This is the keyboard shortcut for Update Field.

I hope you have found this post on cross references in Word useful. Click here to see more articles on Microsoft Word. Like using keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word? Check out my favourite shortcuts for Microsoft Word.