Here's a demonstration of Snapnumbers™ ability to solve autonumbering and cross-referencing issues (Word's nightmares) without stress, strain, or anxiety.

Transcript:

So this is to explain how to, add cross references to Snap Numbers if you're using our Snap Numbers product. So So let's suppose we have a snap number to document here. I'll add in some level three snap numbers in front of each of these paragraphs.

And let's suppose this first paragraph is about ants, second paragraph is about bears, third paragraph is about cats, fourth paragraph is about dogs, and fifth paragraph is about elephants.

And then later in the document, I want to add a sentence that says, cats are discussed in paragraph blank.

And I wanna put a cross reference here to the cats paragraph, and I want that cross reference to always reflect reality. I want it to change. If I rearrange my paragraphs later, if some of the paragraphs are deleted and others added, I always want that number to refer to the Katz paragraph.

You can do that with a cross reference. If you click on tab in Word, look for the cross reference button over here towards the middle, click that, and Word has a whole array of things that you can make cross references to. In this case, we wanna make a cross reference to a numbered item. It's the first one on the list there.

Whether or not you choose to leave the hyperlink turned on, it's up to you. It is kinda handy. I generally leave it turned on.

And what do I wanna make across which numbered item do I wanna make a cross reference to? Here's my cats paragraph. That's the one I want to refer to. And then what text do I want to, have appear at the location where the cross reference is made? Do I want to have it refer to a page number where the paragraph exists, or do I wanna have it refer to a paragraph number where the cat's paragraph exists? In this case, I'm referring to a paragraph, so I wanna choose paragraph number there.

And then I'll click the insert button and close. And that puts in a cross reference code, which, will update to reflect whatever happens to be the number of that cat's paragraph. So that's all great so far, but you need to know a couple of things when working this with this. Let's suppose, for example, that I cut this cat's paragraph from here.

I copied.

Cut. There it goes. I cut that, and I move it up one, paste it there so it's now above bears. My snap numbers, as you would expect, are updating immediately.

So my cat's paragraph is now numbered two and my bear's paragraph is now numbered three. My cross reference does not immediately update. It still has the old information in there. It's still talking about paragraph three.

Cross references, they've changed a little over the years. It used to be that cross references would update when you saved a document or open the document. That's not true anymore. But you can force a there's a couple of different things that will that will cause a cross reference to update. One is if you select the cross reference and press f nine I'm pressing f nine on my keyboard, and that updated the cross reference. So if you use cross references a lot, you kinda get in the habit of once you're finished with your document and you're ready to distribute it, you select all your text, you press f nine, and then you know that all of your cross references are up to date.

I'll show you another, less obvious way to update cross references. Let's move that cat's paragraph again.

I'm gonna cut it from there and move it down under bears.

So now it's paragraph number three again.

So another way you can update cross references is by taking advantage of, I don't even know if this is intentional on the part of Microsoft, but if you go into your print screen, by clicking your little, print icon, which I've lost for the moment.

So I'll click file, print, go into your print screen, and Word updates cross references throughout the document, not just on this page, but throughout the document when it enters this screen. And now I can just back back and give you a proper preview here showing the correct number. Now that I've entered this screen, I don't have to continue on and print the document or anything. I can just back right out of the screen, and all of my cross references throughout the document have been updated.

So for people who can't remember the f nine keystroke or who don't feel like selecting all the text before they press f nine, anytime you like with your cursor sitting anywhere in the document, you can just press control p, escape to back out of it again, and know that all your cross references have been updated. Snap numbers, because they are just text rather than formatting, you can treat them just as you would any other text. So if I wanted to delete this snap number, for instance, it's I'm just using my delete key as I would to delete any other characters. So I'm gonna go back into my starting point here.

So if I wanted to put a snap number plus a tab character in front of each of those pair those other four paragraphs, I'm just gonna select the snap number and tab character here. I'm pressing control c to copy them.

And then I'm using a great shortcut keystroke, one of my absolute favorites. Control down arrow jumps my cursor down to the beginning of the next paragraph.

Control v pastes the material that I just copied, control down arrow to the next paragraph, control v, control down arrow, control v, control down arrow, control v.

And so the combination of those two keystrokes is pretty powerful. I can just zip through my document, alternating a couple of keystrokes and and replicate things really quickly. And then the other thing I wanted to point out with the snap numbers is when I was inserting this cross reference here to the cats paragraph, I'm gonna do it again on the references tab, clicking cross reference.

There's cats selecting a numbered item just like before. Notice that there are actually three different paragraph number choices here. I chose the top one, paragraph number all by itself. I'm gonna show you why there are three different choices there and when you might wanna use different ones. Let's suppose that we have a subparagraph here, subparagraph a, that'll be a level four snap number.

Blah blah blah blah blah. Let's see. This is about let's say this is about red ants

And then we'll put in paragraph b right here, also a level four number, black ant, blah blah blah blah blah. And then let's put in a cross reference to this black ant paragraph and see what happens.

Put my cursor where I want the cross reference, click the references cross reference button, make sure numbered item is still selected. There's my black ants paragraph.

I want a reference. And this time, I'm gonna go I'm gonna go with the default one or what I think of as the default. The first one on the list there that just says paragraph number by itself. I'll click insert.

What that does is it gives you what word figures you probably want, which in this case is a one period b. Notice that it excluded the period after the b. This period here is actually one that I typed at the end of my sentence. The cross reference itself is excluding the closing punctuation, which is great.

That's exactly what I want. It has it has made a very good guess.

If I had created that cross reference within this paragraph here, up, within, this paragraph or this paragraph or this paragraph, somewhere up here within number one, it would have guessed something different. I'm pretty sure it would well, let's just try it. I'm gonna copy that cross reference code from down here.

I'm gonna paste it here within the paragraph a, and then I'm gonna press f nine to update it. Yeah. See how it changes?

It it it looks at the context of where it's sitting in the document. It figures if you're already within section one, you probably don't want to include the one period as part of your cross reference here. And it and it generally does a very good job. So I I will almost always use that first choice when I'm creating a cross reference to a paragraph number.

But there will be times when you want something different. So let me show you what the other two do. Here, I'm gonna put in a cross reference to that same black ants paragraph, and this time, instead of the first choice, I'm going with the second one, which is no context.

Click insert there.

And you can see that just forces it to ignore any of the surrounding punctuation, any of the surrounding or preceding levels, so it excluded the one period. It's just the number all by itself

And then the last choice on there, we'll do something a little bit surprising here, Cross reference to the black ants paragraph. The third choice is paragraph number full context.

And when I click that, it not only gave me the one that preceded the section number here, but it also gave me the Roman numeral one and the capital a, which are part of the numbering scheme. If I look at the numbering scheme for this document, I have Roman numerals at level one, capital letters at level two before I get to level three. And so this is giving me the total outline structure from the beginning level one all the way through to number I'm referencing. That's full context.

You can deal with peculiar situations, create your own format for the references. Like, I wanted to say, as discussed in subparagraph blank of section blank, I can build my own structure this way.

Here, I want the the d of the black ants paragraph to appear, and here, I want the numeral one of the section paragraph to appear. In that case, I would select this one. I'd create two cross references. I'd select this one and click cross reference to my black ants black ants paragraph, tell it no context because I only want the b all by itself.

And then over here, I'll create a second cross reference to the ants paragraph. That's the one with the numeral one on it.

Again, paragraph number, no context, insert and close. Because in that case, I'm providing my own content text. I have decided how I want to punctuate and and identify each of those cross references in the surrounding text