Cross reference problem in Word 2003

[Kathryn M]

Two of us are working on a long manual with many cross references. In the
middle of the document, a cross-reference shows up as all the text to the end
of the doc. Trying to move past that point freezes the document. Sometimes,
an error message appears Error Reference Not Found. Any suggestions?.

I think what happened is that this section of the manual was copied from
another manual and the link got broken. Also, if there are links to MVP or
Word Knowledge Base docs about cross references, I would appreciate those. I
think I've seen this problem described somewhere, but I can't find it.

Thanks very much--again.
Kathryn M

 

[Margaret Aldis]

You've been caught in a bookmark trap. Word places a hidden bookmark around
the heading or whatever that you are referencing. If you have your cursor at
the beginning of the heading when you paste, the insertion is placed within
the bookmark and so cross references show up with a lot of extra text (this
is a good reason for working with field codes always shaded, as you get
early warning). It can occasionally get spectacularly messy and corrupt
documents.

You'll need to re-enter the offending cross reference. You should find when
you select it the whole sorry mess highlights (as the value of the field)
and can be replaced with the correct reference. However if Word is barfing
on the display you may do better with field codes showing (Alt-F9).