How can you make "cross-referenced" "numbered items" in Word update when referencing paragraph numbers -- manually is perfectly fine?

Question

I have a voluminous text in Word 2016 on my MacBook Air M1 that has plenty of paragraph numbers and the final number of each will not be certain until nearly the very end of the process of drafting the document. The paragraph numbers therefore continuously change.

I need to use references to texts and the most plausible way seems to be using the paragraph numbers next to them. However, since each paragraph number subsequent to a newly created paragraph number will incrementally increase, the references quickly become outdated.

I tried setting up "cross-references" referring to the "numbered items" and "paragraph numbers"; however, they do not update — neither automatically, nor upon CMD + FN-F9.

I tried "unlocking" the references by selecting them and pressing CMD + Shift + FN-F11 to no avail. And this is all I found so far on answers.microsoft.com and using Google.

The paragraph numbers may change, the cross-references to them, do not.

How could I make this work? I just hope this is not one of those Mac-only bugs...

---

Yep. This seems to be indeed just a Mac-Word bug. I didn't really do anything, and now suddenly it started to update the numbers of the cross-referenced paragraphs.

If someone knows the cause and how to address it when it occurs, that would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Cross-references, like many fields in Word, are not auto-updating. Ref fields should update upon printing or print preview. See this Microsoft page on which fields get updated, when.

Try Cmd+A followed by Fn+F9.

Here is the Microsoft page on Keyboard Shortcuts.

Here is my chart of keyboard shortcuts dealing with fields.

You are not using the correct shortcuts. Cmd+Fn-F9 should create a new field, not update a current one!

Here is a macro that should update only cross-reference fields, wherever located in the document.

Sub RefFieldUpdateAllStory()
'   Written by Charles Kyle Kenyon 15 November 2001
'   repaired by Jezebel
'   All Story Field Updater - Ref fields
    Dim oField As Field
    Dim oStory As range
    '    On Error Resume Next
    For Each oStory In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges
        ' This goes into headers and footers as well as the regular document
        Do
            For Each oField In oStory.Fields
                If oField.Type = wdFieldRef Then
                    oField.Update
                End If
            Next oField
            Set oStory = oStory.NextStoryRange
        Loop Until oStory Is Nothing
    Next oStory
    Set oStory = Nothing
    On Error GoTo -1
End Sub

If necessary, add oField.Locked = False as a line before oField.Update. Here are Word MVP Graham Mayor's Instructions on Installing Macros found in forums.