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fifelaura
Inspiring
December 4, 2014
Answered

Using different text for a cross reference

  • December 4, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 885 views

Hi all

My user guide has several section title pages, which detail what users will find in the chapters in that particular section.

I've been asked to create a link from each bullet in the section page to the relevant chapter.

I don't want to include the chapter title in the bullets in the section page.

For example

My first chapter is called "Getting Started".

Before this chapter, there is a "section file", which says something like

"This section contains details of the following:

  • How to get started with product
  • Information contained in chapter 2
  • information contained in chapter 3"

I want users to be able to click on the text "How to get started with product" and be taken directly to the start of chapter 1.

I don't want the bullet in the section page to read "Getting started".

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks in advance

Laura

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Bob_Niland

    Laura,

    FM tries to interpret any characters following a slash ("\")  as special symbols. You have to use the  "/" as a separator for the folders instead.


    > FM tries to interpret any characters following a slash ("\")  as special symbols.

    Does escaping the backslash with a second \\ fix that?

    > You have to use the  "/" as a separator for the folders instead.

    Basically, FM defaults to Unix notation internally for file paths (forward slashes) even on Windows.

    2 replies

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 4, 2014

    What you want is a cross-reference marker Definition of type <$MarkerText>.

    FM doesn't have that, although it's been on the wishlist for at least 15 years.

    A couple of alternatives:

    • For a small number of such Xrefs, create a new Cross-Reference formats specific to each text required, for example:
      Name: Getting_Started
      Definition: How to get started with product
      Xref to the real heading using this Xref format.
    • Put some Run-In hidden text at the target, for example:
      ParaTag: Heading2.hid
      text: How to get started with product
      Xref to the hidden by normal <$paratext>.
    Jeff_Coatsworth
    Community Expert
    Jeff_CoatsworthCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 4, 2014

    I’ve never used it, but you may want to investigate the hyperlink commend to accomplish what you want

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 4, 2014

    > ... hyperlink commend to accomplish what you want ...

    That seems to work, most of the time.

    It's some work to set up, as you need to:

    1. Insert a unique Hypertext newlink marker at the target.
    2. Prepare a hypertext area at the link text desired (whole para or Character Format tagged region thereof).
    3. Insert a Hypertext gotolink marker, pointing at the newlink marker at the target.

    And you may need to enable Named Destinations in the PDF generation.

    It does avoid polluting the Xref Format catalog, and avoids stewardship issues with hidden text (but I'm not sure HT markers are much more obvious to future maintainers).

    F
    fifelauraAuthor
    Inspiring
    December 5, 2014

    Thanks for this, everyone, esp Error7103.

    Couple of notes for anyone else using this:

    Use "Specify Named Destination" and "Jump to Named Destination" respectively for the two items from the drop-down list.

    If you're jumping to a link in another file, make sure you add the .fm extension to the file name. Took me a while to work this out!

    Laura

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