Writing a lot of footnotes I need a cross-reference function (which MS Word has) where I can for example write “see above fn. no. X” and no matter how many changes I will later make in the number or the order of my footnotes the targeted footnote will remain fixed and the value of X will change accordingly,
I understand that there are no footnotes numbers in scrivener so the question is whether there is a way to do it somehow so that later on the desired cross-reference will appear at the compiled text.
Moreover: Is there at all a cross-reference function in scrivener which is not only to documents (using bookmarks) but rather to specific places within the text?
I tried to find an answer in the tutorial but failed. If someone can answer me or at-least guide me to a place (maybe In the tutorial) where I can find answers, I’ll be very thankful.
I’ll make it easier and start with a simple Yes/No question:
Is there a cross-reference function on scrivener with which one can create a link to a specific place within the text itself (like a bookmarked word or character, a table, a numbered item, a numbered paragraph, a page, any of the above, etc.) ?
You need to look at Placeholders under the Help menu. Be aware that there are a LOT of placeholders. You can probably achieve some of what you want with them.
The place you want to reference in the user manual is within the general section on linking, §10.1, Linking Documents Together. That goes over everything you can do in Scrivener to link things together, while subsection §10.1.4, on compiling document links, addresses reader level cross-references more specifically.
I would say in general that Scrivener’s capabilities here are adequate, for simple tasks. It’s going to be more useful for casual referencing I think, than extensive or very specific referencing (like footnote markings and detailed linking within larger sections of text).
You might want to consider looking into and researching Scrivener’s more technical side, where it has support for formats better suited toward this and many other details that will be of benefit. The user manual uses Scrivener’s MMD-LaTeX system to produce the PDF you see. It has a level of cross-referencing within it that would not be possible with Scrivener all by itself, as a writing interface. But this particular workflow does not demand the complex LaTeX or even DocBook routes—it can also produce well-designed .docx and .odt files, where cross-references are output as dynamic markers instead of static text (thus, producing something probably quite close to what you’ve used in Word in the past). This will greatly enhance the post-compile production and review process.
You may want to consider using Zotero, which handles all the ‘above n’ values for footnote citations. Zotero is reasonably well integrated with Scrivener.
I too have this question. More specifically, I’m looking for the functionality of the ‘insert cross-reference’ command in Word, that enables an auto-updateable link to a numbered item (paragraph, heading, table, figure) within the text. For my work, this is an absolute dealbreaker: I need to be able to constantly refer to numbered examples throughout my text. Is there a way to do this? It seems that I can insert an auto-numbered field using the placeholder function, but how can I insert a link to that? Is it through the same Markdown syntax that provides links to URLs? It’s not clear to me how to do that from the documentation I’ve looked at so far. Many thanks in advance, and apologies if this is a stupid question. Brett
