How to link Microsoft Word Field Codes and References

Question

Sorry if this question has already been asked, I can't find it anywhere on the internet.

I have a document that shows many photos, and beneath each photo has a caption, eg:
"Photo 1: A picture of a cat"
"Photo 2: A picture of a dog"
"Photo 3: Another picture of a cat"

I've managed to get the photo caption numbers to auto update when I insert another picture in between, using { AUTONUM * Arabic \s :} field. This works.

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However, elsewhere in my document, I have a list of comments which refer to one or more of the photos:
"There are multiple cats (Photos 1 & 3)"
"There are a set of animals (Photos 1 - 3)"
"However, there is only one dog (Photo 2)"

How can I get the list of comments to automatically update when the photo numbers update? I'd like to tie the number in the comment to the photo number of a particular image, so when that updates, the comment does also.

i.e. If I insert a new photo 2 of a goldfish, the comments will update to:
"There are multiple cats (Photos 1 & 4)"
"There are a set of animals (Photos 1 - 4)"
"However, there is only one dog (Photo 2)"

Any help will be greatly appreciated. I'm going in circles trying different fields to use. I'm using Word 2010 on Windows 7. Thanks in advance, Carlston.

Answer 1

Don't type those numbers in manually, but use a Cross Reference.

1. Go to the place where you want this number.
2. In the ribbon references, press the button 'cross-references'
3. In the drop-down, choose the type of number you want to reference (in your case, photo caption numbers)
4. choose if you want to insert the number only, or the number and the text, or whatever.

These cross references will update automatically (you might need to use CTRL+A, F9 to refresh all fields)