Conditional cross-references in InDesign?

Hi folks,
(We asked this question once before on the FrameMaker forums, and I'll try again here since we're now moving towards InDesign:)
What we need is two types of crossreference formats - one for print, one for PDF/the web/any other hyperlinkable medium.
We would like the crossrefs to appear as follows:
Print:
[some arbitrary block of text] (see page xx)
PDF
[some arbitrary block of text]
The only solution we've been able to figure out is to actually create both a hyperlink AND a crossreference, and then conditionalize the crossreference (show in print, hide in PDF.) But this feels unnecesarily complicated.
Is there a cross-ref variable that stands for "just use the selected text?" Or even "don't do anything at all?" It seems both of these solutions would allow us to just build the links using crossreferences, rather than needing to build links via two different formats?
Thanks,
Dennis

Similar Messages

Conditional cross references (an easier way?)

Hi gurus,
Forgive me if this is an absurdly simple problem, but our team just isn't figuring out an elegant solution.
What we need is two types of crossreference formats - one for print, one for PDF/the web/any other hyperlinkable medium.
We would like the crossrefs to appear as follows:
Print:
[some arbitrary block of text] (see page xx)
PDF
[some arbitrary block of text]
As far as we can tell, FM's crossreferences always GENERATE text based on the building blocks, whereas FM's hyperlinks allow an arbitrary chunk of selected text to serve as the "active" text. The hyperlink behavior is what we want, in both cases. We're not interested in pulling the name of the target paragraph, or the page number, or anything else - we just want the text we typed to serve as the link, no matter the format.
The only solution we've been able to figure out is to actually create both a hyperlink AND a crossreference, and then conditionalize the crossreference (show in print, hide in PDF.) But this feels unnecesarily complicated.
Is there a cross-ref building block that stands for "just use the selected text?" Or even "don't do anything at all?" It seems both of these solutions would allow us to just build the links using crossreferences, rather than needing to build links via two different formats?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Until then, we'll just be here, weeping quietly.
Thanks,
Dennis

ddsbleton wrote:
Hi gurus,
Forgive me if this is an absurdly simple problem, but our team just isn't figuring out an elegant solution.
What we need is two types of crossreference formats - one for print, one for PDF/the web/any other hyperlinkable medium.
We would like the crossrefs to appear as follows:
Print:
[some arbitrary block of text] (see page xx)
PDF
[some arbitrary block of text]
As far as we can tell, FM's crossreferences always GENERATE text based on the building blocks, whereas FM's hyperlinks allow an arbitrary chunk of selected text to serve as the "active" text. The hyperlink behavior is what we want, in both cases. We're not interested in pulling the name of the target paragraph, or the page number, or anything else - we just want the text we typed to serve as the link, no matter the format.
The only solution we've been able to figure out is to actually create both a hyperlink AND a crossreference, and then conditionalize the crossreference (show in print, hide in PDF.) But this feels unnecesarily complicated.
Is there a cross-ref building block that stands for "just use the selected text?" Or even "don't do anything at all?" It seems both of these solutions would allow us to just build the links using crossreferences, rather than needing to build links via two different formats?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Until then, we'll just be here, weeping quietly.
Thank
Dennis
You have two purposes, so you need two kinds of references, and two distributable documents, one for each need. Because a FM cross-reference content can't be broken into pieces, say one piece that displays "some arbitrary block of text," and a piece that displays "(see page xx)," you need two cross-references. Create one cross-reference for print, and point it to the source paragraph; use it with a cross-reference format with the "<$paratext> " building block to capture the text portion of the source, add the text "(see page) " and the <$pagenum> building block. For Web, create another cross-reference to the same source paragraph with only the <$paratext> building block. Create conditions for both cross-references; a print condition, and a Web condition. In the text, apply the appropriate condition to the corresponding cross-reference. Show or hide the condition you need, and create a PDF for one purpose, then reverse the visible/hidden condition settings, and create another PDF for the other purpose.
Because the cross-references in text are different lengths, keep a sharp eye on text reflow in the different conditionalized documents. You can use File > Utilities > Compare Documents in FM, or Acrobat's document comparison features, to check the reflow, but also use your eyes in the real text to confirm what the comparison tools tell you.
Search Google, if necessary, for terms like "importing conditional text settings to framemaker books," without quotes, for more about managing applying conditions to multiple-file books.
HTH
Regards,
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

Updating numbered Cross references crashes InDesign in both CS6 and CS4

I have a large medical journal that has over a hundered references, which I cross-referenced with the thinking that the client may well insert or amend the refernces. I was correct and now the customer has several references to go in I have updated the first in its numbered list at the end and gone to "update cross-refernce" and InDesign crashes. I have tried this in CS6 and CS4 but both crash.

This happens often, particularly with cross-references across documents that are managed with an InDesign book file. One common suggestion, in addition to updating the installed software with the latest patches, is to open all the files in the book before updating; this may or may not always succeed. Search this forum for cross-reference crash to see other suggested solutions.
Some of those posters may mention the commercial third-party Cross-References Plug-in for InDesign, from dtptools.com, and the poster's experience with it. It is reputed to be much more reliable than InDesign's built-in cross-references. It includes an option to convert the ID cross-references to its own, and that's reversible. There's a free trial. There's also a free reader plug-in for users who will need to open and edit documents that contain the plug-in's cross-references. The reader plug-in permits users to edit content in the documents without affecting the cross-references. HOWEVER, to edit or creatge new cross-references, users need the full plug-in.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
mccoole1 wrote:
I have a large medical journal that has over a hundered references, which I cross-referenced with the thinking that the client may well insert or amend the refernces. I was correct and now the customer has several references to go in I have updated the first in its numbered list at the end and gone to "update cross-refernce" and InDesign crashes. I have tried this in CS6 and CS4 but both crash.

How to create ebook chapter cross-references with inDesign CS6?

Hi, I'm creating a fairly technical ebook, and would like the reader to be able to easily link "See Chapter X for more information" with Chapter X. My problem is that all the "See Chapter X for more information" phrases are set up as a character style... it doesn't seem that I can easily cross-reference because I didn't set these phrases up using paragraph styles (which doesn't make much sense to me as each cross-reference would need to be a new paragraph).
I think I just need to anchor the "See Chapter X for more information," phrases, but that isn't proving to be easy to position, the text anchor boxes are showing up in crazy places... having a hard time figuring out how to position anchored text.
Can anyone help?
Thanks in advance.

Hi Conrad,
I'm running CS 5.5 so can't be sure of the differences with your version.
The problem here is simply one of ID terminology.
I suspect what you want to do is this:
1. Select your destination text with the type tool. The destination text is what you want the reference to link to. Then, in the Hyperlinks control menu menu, choose "New Hyperlink Destination" and give it a simple and unique name.
2. Find the text that you want to connect to the destination text. Select it and in the same control panel choose "New Hyperlink..." You'll have the choice of selecting from (what will ultimately be) a number of text anchors.
I hope that makes sense. I quickly checked to see if ID exports a working cross-reference in EPUB and it does, although I didn't have time to examine the HTML.

Successfully importing cross-references from Microsoft Word into InDesign?

Hello --
I am laying out a series of long documents (~130 pages each) in InDesign CS5.5.
The writer for the project has used cross-references in MS Word for areas like the TOC, index and page references ("See page X for more information").
Is it possible to import these cross-references into InDesign so that the InDesign document functions like the Word document with the cross-references?
I am thinking no because I am having a ton of trouble with it so far, but wanted to get a definite answer from an expert.
When I import the text, the cross-references appear in InDesign in the Hyperlinks/cross-reference panel. However, InDesign says they need to be updated based on the way the text flowed in InDesign. And when I click the auto update button, all sorts of funky stuff happens and basically -- the cross-references create a bunch of typos and become junk.
Thoughts? Knowledge on this topic?
Thanks in advance!!

wikiElvis wrote:
Hello --
I am laying out a series of long documents (~130 pages each) in InDesign CS5.5.
The writer for the project has used cross-references in MS Word for areas like the TOC, index and page references ("See page X for more information").
Is it possible to import these cross-references into InDesign so that the InDesign document functions like the Word document with the cross-references?
I am thinking no because I am having a ton of trouble with it so far, but wanted to get a definite answer from an expert.
When I import the text, the cross-references appear in InDesign in the Hyperlinks/cross-reference panel. However, InDesign says they need to be updated based on the way the text flowed in InDesign. And when I click the auto update button, all sorts of funky stuff happens and basically -- the cross-references create a bunch of typos and become junk.
Thoughts? Knowledge on this topic?
Thanks in advance!!
I can't speak to general or specific causes of your cross-reference problems. However, I believe that InDesign x-refs behave a bit differently in CS4, CS5, and CS5.5, and if you have either of these earlier releases, you might try them for comparison.
Also, you might want to look into the free trial of DTP Tools' cross-references plug-in for InDesign, at dtptools.com, to see if it's more successful than InDesign's built-in x-refs.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

InDesign Cross References with DTP's Cross References PRO

There are already posts all over the forum about how inter-document cross references in InDesign are "fragile" and slow and can cause crashing, which I recently learned the hard way. We tried to live with the slowness and the breaking links, but the show-stopper was that we couldn't export our largest book without InDesign crashing. (The book contains 150+ individual documents.)
Based on some recommendations, we are now using a trial of DTP's Cross References PRO plug-in for InDesign. I removed all cross references that were created using InDesign's native cross references, and added several new ones using the plug-in. The slowness has gone away and the cross references don't seem to be breaking anymore, but InDesign still crashes when I try to export our book. DTP's support people insist that their plug-in should be able to handle large books, unlike InDesign. (And I've heard very good things about their support.) Is it possible that our files and/or book are corrupted from when we had the native InDesign cross references? Has anyone switched from native InDesign cross references to DTP cross references?

I don't think it's been determined if you have the latest ID update for your version of ID? BTW, which version are you using?
Where is the "too many files open" message coming from? Operating System (which?) ID? What's the exact message? A screen shot would help. Back in the days of DOS and early Windows, there were commands to set the number of permitted files open at once. Not sure how to do it in modern OSs. If it's an ID message, perhaps someone's got a suggestion.
Some folks on the forum like to see crash files so they can try to analyze them. Search Google for terms like "adobe forum indesign pastebin" without quotes to find some of those postings and learn how to send your crash report files there, and look at the names of those who volunteer to analyze the files.
I was thinking that two book container files that hold the same total number of files in the original single book might lighten the processing load and perhaps avoid a crash. With some work, I think it's possible to get the pagination and other numbering schemes, and x-refs to emulate a single book. I think that this is different from exporting half the files from one book, then the other half. It's not tested, just a thought. One other thought is to remove one file at a time from the book, starting at either the beginning or end, and export, until you find the maximum number of files that succeed consistently. Then try from the other end, to see if the crash happens with the same number of files, or perhaps same number of pages, or even, perhaps, at the same page. Perhaps the number of cross-references in the content is related to the crash. Again, just brainstorming.
You might explore with DTPTools support whether they'd want to see your crash files, to determine if the problem traces to their plug-in. Also, perhaps they'd like to look at your whole project - if it's permissable with your company or client, to see if DTPTools' techs can reproduce the crash.
erin.miska wrote:
We've actually never had the InDesign files open while exporting the book and never had a problem. Just to be sure, I tried this. We actually have too many files to open at one time, but I opened as many as I could. Still crashed.
Can you help me understand your thought behind the second option? What am I troubleshooting by having cross references that point to a document in another book?

Printing cross reference colour highlights InDesign CC

I am using cross references in InDesign CC and a different colour for each. Is it possible to print these from InDesign?

I believe you already have the settings for PDF appearance set in the Cross references dialog.
If you do and are still not seeing the result in the PDF then you need to turn on the setting of Hyperlinks on.
Thanks
Javed

Make Indesign cross references link to the top/above the destination paragraph?

Cross references in InDesign create interactive hyperlinks that link to a position in the resulting PDF where the targetted destination paragraph is right at the very top of the page. Often, it's too far up - sometimes the paragraph text is actually off the top of the page, and usually it's partially off the top of the screen.
When someone follows such a link, the most prominent text in the middle of the page has nothing to do with the link they clicked, and the heading corresponding to what they clicked is often partially off the top of the page as if it has been scrolled past. In my experience this looks like a mistake - they often won't see where they are supposed to start reading until, in confusion, they scroll back up the page a little.
Is there any way to control this - to make cross references jump to a point with a decent amount of padding at the top, so that what the user is looking for appears in a prominent position on the screen?

After some experimentation I've found something that could help make a workaround: The 'Baseline Shift' value for the first character of the destination paragraph determines where the incoming cross reference scrolling will land. This might be the break character and might (invisibly) have the baseline shift value of an earlier paragraph.
Give that first paragraph a high positive baseline shift value, and there will be a corresponding amount of padding above the text when the incoming scroll lands.
Give that first paragraph a very negative baseline shift value, and it will be pushed up above the top of the screen a corresponding amount.
In my problem paragraphs that weren't even on the screen when an incoming link landed, their first character (a tab between the 'bullets and numbering' paragraph number and the text) had somehow acquired a negative baseline shift from an earlier unrelated paragraph.

InDesign Tagged Text for Cross-reference Entries

I'm transforming XML to InDesign Tagged Text. The XML has index codes. For regular page entry type entries I'm having no problem outputting to the appropriate InDesign Tagged Text markup. However, I cannot figure out how to code cross-reference type entries. The document "Using Adobe InDesign Tagged Text CS5 Tagged Text" is extremely limited in its usefulness as it does not list all possible values for tag type tags, etc. I've tried dozens of tag combos and guesses at values. None have worked. Also, for some reason, even though I can create a "See x" type reference in the InDesign document, when I export to InDesign Tagged Text to look at the code, those tags are not included in the export.
Does anyone have a more definitive list of possible IDTT index tag values?

I have been exporting various things to IDTT to see what the result would be, with nothing really helpful as a result. I'll try hyperlinks, but reading of the Adobe guide to InDesign Tagged Text and also just looking at the InDesign scripting object model leads me to believe that there must be specific tags to create index-specific cross-reference tags.

Cross reference or hyperlinking not working for InDesign CS5 Book to ePub

I cannot get hyperlinks or cross reference links to work when generating an ePub from InDesign CS5. (7.0.0.355, Mac OS 10.6.2)
Here's how to recreate a simple test demonstrating the issue.
1. Create a new InDesign Book (File -> New -> Book)
2. Create document one (File -> New -> Document)
3. Create a text box and type "Table of Contents"
4. Create document two (File -> New -> Document)
5. Create a text box in it and type "Story One"
6. Create a new paragraph style and assign it to the Story One text
7. Save document 2. I just kept the name Untitled-2.xhtml
8. Back in document 1, add a cross-reference and select document 2, the style you created, and then "Story One". "Story One" should now appear under the previously typed Table of Contents text, and when highlighed, should show it is an active cross reference in the Hyperlinks panel.
9. Save document 1. I just kept the name Untitled-1.xhtml
10. Add both documents to the Book and save the book.
11. From the Book panel, select Export Book to EPUB...
12. Save the epub file and open it in Adobe Digital Editions.
Note that the text "Story One" appears as a hyperlink but when clicked does not switch to the document 2. It does nothing apparent when clicked.
Looking at the XHTML source for the first document, it is immediately evident why. The filename for document 2.thml is missing. It looks like this: <a href="#anchor-anchor">
When it should be : <a href="Untitled-2.xhtml#anchor-anchor">
The same thing works if you create a hyperlink instead of a cross reference.
I note then when I use the option to go to the destinate reference in the Cross Link (hyperlink) panel, it does switch to the second InDesign docuemtn. So the cross reference is functioning (in InDesign). But the link is broken in the ePub for the above mentioned reason.
Bug? Something I'm overlooking?
Entire source of Untitled-1.xhtml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Untitled-1.xhtml</title>
<link href="template.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="untitled-1">
<div class="generated-style">
<p class="basic-paragraph" xml:lang='en-us'><span class="no-style-override">Table of Contents</span></p>
<p class="basic-paragraph" xml:lang='en-us'><span class="no-style-override"><a href="#anchor-anchor">‚Äústory one‚Äù</a></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

As far as I can tell, it has NOT yet been fixed in CS5.5. I'm having the same problem. I have about 90 hyperlinks to fix.
And the explanation that Teus Dejong gives indicates it's not going to be that helpful: "we have found that only the links in documents split by the CS5 exporter will be fixed. For books the script does only work for references to earlier documents in the book, not for forward references. This means in practice that for most books the script will not repair the links and should be seen as a means to add the year only. At the moment I see no way to repair this, because the book epub output of InDesign does not contain sufficient information to repair links referencing forward to others documents in a book."
It's pretty discouraging.

Cross references corrupted after placing Word document into an InDesign document

I am placing a word document which contains cross references to headers and captions/figures within the document. They seem to be fine and function correctly in the Word document, however, after I place this word doc into my InDesign doc, I take a look at the cross references panel and notice that the cross references have been corrupted. It is wrapping the wrong portions of text from the cross reference destinations. See screenshot for a visual of how the cross references are malformed. For example the 7th cross reference in the list should say Framework Details, not "Framework Detai
InDesign Cross References Panel - showing malformed bits of text
Another visual of this issue can be seen if I view the text frame in Story Editor view, see below. You can see that the cross reference source tags (blue arrow like symbols) are wrapped around the wrong portions of text. The blue tags shoud be wrapped around Framework Details and 52
InDesign Story Editor
You can see below as to why I think the cross references are fine in the Word doc, you can see the same cross reference I used in the example above in the word doc and it is wrapping the correct portion of text:
Word - showing cross reference is formed corerctly
Why is this not being maintained after placing this file into InDesign?
Also I am not performing any cross reference updates after I import, this problem occurs immediately after the place of the doc.
Why would InDesign be having difficulty in importing these cross references? I have set up a simple test Word document with cross references to headers and figures in and they have imported fine. What could be wrong with this other particular word doc that would be causing this "corruption" of cross references? This is not only causing my cross references to break visually and lack the update capability but also I cannot export the InDesign doc to an ePub as it keeps crashing. I believe from my reading on the web that if there is only one broken cross reference source i.e. the cross reference destination that it is trying to link to is missing, then the export to epub will fail. So this is causing a massive headache for me at the minute.
Is there anything I could be looking at in the Word doc to try and figure out why the porblem is occuring in the first place?
If anyone has any tips or a possible solution to this I would really appreciate it. Even better if someone knows the reason why this is happening I can tackle it from the source and prevent it happening time and time again.
Thanks, Dave

Only bad experiences, Peter ...
I've seen this character shifting before on numerous occasions, both with cross references and with hyperlinks. (It's especially funny with hyperlinks, 'cause you can see that the outline box shifts one character at a time per each next link...)
The thing is it's not just limited to hyperlinks and cross refs. Dave's screenshot doesn't show bold, italics, or other local formatting, but it's a fair bet these are off by a couple of characters as well.
Dave's experiment of making a "minimal" Word document to confirm it's a persistent bug didn't work. I found the same thing: either a document comes in fine, or everything is foo-bar right from the start. There must be some internal Word code that InDesign forgets to count as 'a character position'. Without delving into the Word file with some very advanced tools, it's anyone's guess what code that would be.
I can only offer the one solution that works for me: in Word, remove all hyperlinks (which is what Word uses for internal links as well as for external ones) and convert all cross-references to text. Then, if the file finally imports fine, re-build them in InDesign. It's a cumbersome workaround, but slightly better (only just) than checking each reference, delete, rebuild, check next -- etc. (And with that the chance that your other text attributes are also off.)

Indesign CS6 Very slow - cross-references?

Dear All,
I have been struggeling with this for over 2 days now..
I've treid the following solutions on the Adobe website
http://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/slow-performance-indesign-cs5.html
and http://indesignsecrets.com/why-is-indesign-soooo-slow.php
It does not seem to work.
My document is around 40 pages, with some images (around 20), but it has a lot of cross references to a table in the same document.
I have untreaded a lot of information. Currently only 10 pages maximum is threaded.
My pc has 8 gb ram, 2.5 Ghz and around 40 GB free HD space.
I think it might be my cross references, but I don't know how to fix it..
I don't want it to be removed out of the table (because i need my references sorted on alhabatical order).
Hope you guys can help
Thanks,
Daan

@Daan – I do not much with cross references, but several users here and in other forums report performance issues when working with cross references.
There is a 3rd party solution by DTP Tools:
http://www.dtptools.com/product.asp?id=crin
You could test a trial version.
(And report back here how fast it is :-) )
Uwe

InDesign CS6 Crashes When I Make a Cross-Reference

I've downloaded CS6 from the Cloud, and have been quite happy with it, until yesterday when I attempted to do a simple cross-reference to create endnotes. I use Bob Bringhurst's method — http://blogs.adobe.com/indesigndocs/2009/03/endnotes_in_indesign_cs4.html , and when I get to Step 4, InDesign crashes. I've pasted the crash report on pastebin.com http://pastebin.com/pbeSWU0t . I'm on a MacBook Pro, running system 10.6.8. Thanks for any and all help. I've created a goofy work-around that will get me through this job, but is not going to work in the long run.
Note: The first thing I did was replace the preferences. This did not help.

Sorry, I had meant to reply earlier, unfortunately I didn't have much to say.
Yes, it looks like it is crashing in an area of the code that deals with hyperlinks/crossreferences.
That is unfortunately not a surprise
So I think you get to open a case at http://adobe.com/go/support or file a wishlist bug at http://adobe.com/go/wish. Sorry.

Cross References Being Lost InDesign CS4

I am setting up cross-references in a multiple
document book using InDesign CS4 (Windows).
When our editors open the files using InCopy CS4
some of the cross-references are broken (little red flag icon appears).
I've relinked the cross-references several times but everytime
an InCopy user opens the file the cross-references are lost again.
The sources and destinations are within the same document.
I'm using Paragraph number as the cross-referencing method.
Does it have something to do with the InDesign files being part of a Book?
Any help would be great.
Thanks, Bill

wsterli wrote:
I am setting up cross-references in a multiple
document book using InDesign CS4 (Windows).
When our editors open the files using InCopy CS4
some of the cross-references are broken (little red flag icon appears).
I've relinked the cross-references several times but everytime
an InCopy user opens the file the cross-references are lost again.
The sources and destinations are within the same document.
I'm using Paragraph number as the cross-referencing method.
Does it have something to do with the InDesign files being part of a Book?
Any help would be great.
Thanks, Bill
It's possible that being a book component file that's separated from its other component files has some effect.
I believe that x-refs look for a coded marker to keep up-to-date, not the paragraph number, so even if the numbers get out of whack because they continue from a previous file, this shouldn't cause the problem.
I don't know how x-refs appear in IC. Is it possible to hover over the error indicator and see an explanation of the problem? If so, please post the message.
Do the x-refs become resolved when you return the document to the book in ID?
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

Export cross-references and hyperlinks from InDesign to Word?

Hi,
I am wondering if it is possible to export text from InDesign (CS5) to Word (2010) keeping all cross-references active?
This would be really nice if so as we do a lot of translations for literature and need to keep moving back and forth with editors using Word.
If anyone has any information on this, please let me know!
Thank you.

Hi,
Thank you for the suggestion, but our company is world-wide and each subsidiary deals with different staff and editors (who only some use Adobe software, but all use Office). I will pass along the info though.
This would be a good Feature Request for a future release of InDesign!
Thanks again.

Conditional cross-references in InDesign?

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