Editing text in one place changes text in another? Is it possible?

[Kyle5D2D]

I have a document that refers to its own pages often. I am wondering if there is a way to "link" text so that when I change it in one place it simultaneously updates it in another. For example: I have a document of ten pages. "Part 050" is listed on three pages in text. I would love to change the text on page 2 and have it auto update on pages 7 and 9. Any thoughts? (This is a simplified example. The actual documents range from 100-300 pages and has references on multitudes of pages.)

[Doug A Roberts · Accepted solution]

Using symbols, perhaps. I don't like telling people flat out to use InDesign, but there are several (possible) ways to do this in InDesign, and managing 100-page documents is far easier in InDesign too.

[Kyle5D2D]

THANK YOU! I had a feeling that I was going to be looking into InDesign.

[michelew83603738 · Accepted solution]

I don't know if you could do this via scripting or not, but it seems like a long way to go everytime you want to change something. Illustrator really isn't the proper software to be creating large documents. Do you have the entire Adobe CC or just Illustrator? This could be handled so easily in InDesign - it is what the program is made for. Learning curve is not bad and you would find that the time it takes to create long documents and everything you could do would be worth the effort.

[Kyle5D2D]

Thank You! I'll take that suggestion. I had been waiting until the proper sign to start working with Indesign. I guess this is it. 

[Warren Heaton]

It sounds more like the document has text threading between objects than something to do with Symbols.

Adobe Illustrator Help - Threading Text Between Objects:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/creating-text.html#threading_text_between_objects