TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Dealing with autogenerated cross refs From:Glenda Jeffrey <jeffrey -at- HKS -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 22 Nov 1995 18:12:13 GMT
I'm curious how you folks deal with auto-generated cross references in
very long documents. The problem is that, in order to guarantee that
the cross references are properly generated, you have to print the
entire document. In our case, that's a couple thousand pages.
One alternative I've thought of is setting up a list (auto-generated
of course) that couples a macro definition to a section number. (We're
not using page-number-based cross references, thank goodness.) That
way, you don't need to print the entire document to get the cross
references right, assuming that somebody has updated the list
recently.
The only trouble is that, with the software I'm using, this is
unwieldy. The software insists on maintaining one big long list of
macro definitions that the user can pick from with the mouse; there's
no way to split it apart into manageable lists. The long list is very
slow coming up, too.
Anybody got any other bright ideas? I'm working in SGML,
but don't let that stop you from responding, since ideas
based on other publishing systems may still be valid.
--
Glenda Jeffrey Email: jeffrey -at- hks -dot- com
Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen, Inc Phone: 401-727-4200
1080 Main St. Fax: 401-727-4208
Pawtucket, RI 02860