Section# / xref questions

[jackz73454476]

Hi,

I'm writing a music book in CC2017 in which there are multiple chapters.

In each chapter is a series of exercises denoted with

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

etc.

I have these defined with Exercise as the prefix in the section/numbering dialog. I have setup a specific paragraph style I call "Exercise n". This seems to work fine but...

I want the exercises to continue to increment even in new chapters but it seems that they are resetting to 1 in each chapter.

Also, I'm a bit confused with the groupbox that seemingly is tying the page number together with the section. I want page # to be separate from section because I have multiple Exercises on each page.

Additionally, even though I check the Include Prefix When Numbering Pages option, I do not get the "Exercise 1" prefix/number in the TOC.

Regarding xref, i have found that if I cut/paste text containing references, it seems to break the xref relationship and the items do not update properly after that.

With my previous books, I used Virginia Systems inseq for the numbering and xref and this worked really well but I no longer have the plugins and I can no longer load the earlier versions of my books because of this so It's made me realize that having dependencies on plugins might not be a great idea...So if I can achieve the functionality I want with built-in functionality it would be better.

[Om Nath Jha]

Hi Jack,

Cross-references have two important limitations:

• In general, the text you’re referencing needs to be on the page.
• In general, the text has to have a paragraph style applied to it.

I am sharing a couple of help articles, please check them. I hope it will answer your query.

Insert and manage cross-references in InDesign

https://indesignsecrets.com/creating-cross-references-text-anchors.php

Regards,

Om

[jackz73454476]

Thanks, the text I'm referencing was on a page and the text does have a paragraph style applied to it. Regarding the exercise {n} paradigm, I found that what works across chapters is a multi-story custom list. I think I'm going to switch all my numbering to that, assuming it supports multiple instances.

[amaarora · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The first part of the query can easily be solved by creating a separate paragraph styles with the below settings only for the "Exercise n" part. Whenever you create a frame and enter space with this style, it will add the exercise number the way you have described above. The number will increment across chapters.

Additionally, with this method creation of TOC will be easy since now you only need to include this paragraph style as an entry in TOC and all entries would come with correct exercise number and page number.

-Aman

[jackz73454476]

Thanks Aman.

That is what I said in the reply before yours. I just didn't have the picture.

I assume that every unique named list has its own counter so I can use multiples ? Is there a way to refer to the value of the list without incrementing it?

Something like {level1}.{level2+} so that I can get 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 ?