automating cross referencing

[JKA@4153]

Hi everyone,

I have to create close to 500 cross references in a book I'm working on. The book is divided into chapters and I'm using the books panel to manage each chapter. As I need to link the text to headings in the document, I'm assuming that to do this manually is going to take hours of work since I'd need to select the source text, then scroll through hundreds of headings in the cross references panel in order to create the correct link.

An example would be as follows:

I'd link this:

(see ¶15-110)

to a heading called:

¶15-110 HEADING NAME

I wondered if there was a way to automate this, ie. to somehow have a script that would search for the ¶ character and then look for some numbers following this character, and then link this number to a heading that begins with the same number.

Does anyone know if this is possible or whether there's a script out there that does this?

Not looking forward to doing this manually so any advice much appreciated.

Thanks

[Guest]

If you're working in CS5 and using the native cross referencing, beware that there is a severe performance slow down if you have that many active cross references in your book. InDesign will process through every single cross reference every time you make the slightest change in any of the documents containing the references. You may want to make sure you are completely done making any edits (even simple ones) to your document before you create all those cross references.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/692546?tstart=0

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/738512?tstart=90

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/738452?tstart=120

[JKA@4153]

I'm actually only working in CS4 so that isn't an issue luckily.

Would be get to get some feedback about the scripting though? Anyone?

[Kasyan Servetsky]

I think this is possible to automate — in this thread you'll find a script that you can modify to your needs.

Kasyan

[JKA@4153]

Kasyan,

I had a look at the link you provided but I noticed that the script on that site was for cross-referencing from text to images.

I don't know much javascript so would probably need help in creating such a script, so I wondered if you'd be interested in doing this and if so how much it would cost?

[Kasyan Servetsky]

Yes, I am interested. But I am working on a script that should be completed asap and can't get down to this at least this week .  Could you wait?

Kasyan

[JKA@4153]

I actually have to have this done by next Monday so it may not leave enough time. I'll probably have to do the links manually this time around but it would be good to get a quote for the next book as it will probably have to be done on a regular basis. Do you have a website or can you quote?

[Kasyan Servetsky]

I reworked the script for you -- could you get in touch with me by e-mail: askoldich [at] yahoo [dot] com

Kasyan

[Marcos_Suárez]

You can test the changes that I made a kasyan's script ...

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/720615

[JKA@4153]

That's great - thanks for the link to the script. I'll see if I can modify it.