I created a folder “Appendix” under which I add several documents (actually a tree of document), so A1 - appendix one, A2 - appendix two, A2.1 - subitem in appendix 2.
I regularly add footnotes to text that should point to such an appendix. So, for example a footnote that should read “See appendix 2.1”
Obviously the numbering should remain intact when reordering documents in the appendix.
I managed to get this working in normal text, using prefix tile and <$hn> with a link to the document in question.
However, this does not work with Footnotes. As footnote text I canNOT type “See Appendix <$hn>” and have the compiler add in the correct number, so it comes out as “See Appendix 2.1”.
Been struggling with this for many hours. Hope anyone knwos the solution to this…
I assume you mean a footnote in the inspector, which use would have technical limitations involving internal links.
For cases where you need a footnote to host a link, for whatever reason, you must use the inline footnote variant instead. As inline footnotes (and annotations) are a special kind of formatting in the main editor, they have very few limitations and are thus the standard tool to use when you need complex formatting or functionality from a footnote or comment.
You can easily get what you need converted over, by selecting the highlighted footnote range corresponding the footnote that needs a link, and using the command in the Edit ▸ Transformations submenu to convert to inline footnote.
That’s a real pitty. I tried your workaround, but I do not like it. The inline footnotes distract because they make the text itself very hard to read. Unformtunately there seems not to be something like “Hide markup” to get rid the text as to be able to properly focus on the text itself.
Seem like I have to start typing the cross references by had everywhere (which is quite intensive and error prone).
Suggestion to fix suck kinds of cross referencing this in the future. (I can hardly believe it is not possible yet, as it is so very common to use a footnote to point to an appendix).
This is a dedicated feature doing precisely what is intended to do, rather than a temporary fix to get around a bug; it is not a workaround.
That aside, yes, I would not strongly advocate for using Scrivener vanilla for the forms of writing that require more infrastructure like this. Scrivener is much better when it is combined with a writing method designed for this kind of work, and it has extensive built-in support for integrating with Markdown. You will have far greater flexibility, more professional file formats to convert to, better quality documents, and it is an easier typing convention to work with than Scrivener’s in my opinion. I would only find the latter suitable for a few cross-references here or there.
With Markdown, you simply type in Refer to [Binder Title] like that, and that can often be all you need. You can of course type brackets wherever you want, in any software, or any area of the software (such as footnotes); you don’t need special technology. But furthermore, this format makes it very clear what you are referring to, as a writer, you don’t have to hover over a link and wait for a tooltip to see the target. That is how I type in the many hundreds of cross-references in our user manual PDF. The post-processing I use (LaTeX), handles the nomenclature and all the numbering for me, and Markdown handles the formatting of putting it into parentheses when the reference is given as an aside. It is also capable of targeting tables and figures directly, which is something Scrivener cannot do.
Better cross-referencing is only one small benefit of using this more powerful side of Scrivener though. If you are already familiar with Markdown, have a look at Chapter 21 in the user manual. This mainly covers where Scrivener goes beyond your typical Markdown editor though, for the basic rudiments of how it works with it, this post is a good starter, along with the post it links to toward the top.
And again, I left it implied, but the user manual PDF is written in Scrivener using Markdown. So that is a showcase of some of what this approach is capable of.
Thanks for the elaborate answer and sorry for my use of the word ‘workaround’ ;-). I just got things set up in a way that works pretty well, so starting all over with latex or markdown, postprocessing or whatever is not something I can quite afford to dig into right now, as I need to finish some document with a nasty deadline.
I will quickly scan Chapter 21 and the link you send to see if I feel comfortable turning things over.
I am kind of surprised though that in text I can just type <$hn>, select it and link to the document to get exactly what is needed: the chapter number (better: appendix nummer) I need.
The same cannot be done in the inspector, which kind of surprises me.
Nevertheless, thanks for the quick reply. Much appreciated!
Yes, it is a technical limitation though, in that the bits of code we need to make such links work are not there. Any other method would ultimately end up looking more like Markdown as it would have to reference the binder name by title, so at some point the matter of diminishing returns sets in. Why gradually reinvent what is already there, and supported by armies of developers and users around the world.
Fully understand not wanting, or being able to, switch gears in the middle of a big project! It’s something to think about for the next time though. With how Scrivener uses this technology, there are some that barely even use it at all in the text editor, and in fact could probably compile their projects “normally”. I myself prefer way more markup than that, I actually find it appealing to write that way, but for those that do not, the “ramp” is a lot more gradual and gentle than you might think.
