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> I am trying to develop a format for an internal document which will
> primarily be read online. I already know that I will need to have
> lots of cross references within the document. I am wondering if I can
> insert a cross reference that not only will display the page number;
> but jump to the location in the document when the reader clicks on it.
> As long as I'm thinking about internal jumps, I might as well include
> cross references to external documents.
If the document will be read online, what meaning do page number cross-
references have? If Word source documents are being read, the page
numbers will relate to the last time the document was printed or viewed
in Page Layout or Print Preview, and will change when the document is
edited. The only case I can think of where page numbers are maningful
for online viewing is if the documents are in PDF format and are being
read with Acrobat Reader.
> I have heard that Word97 might be able to do this. However, we have
> _finally_ gotten everyone in the company using Win95 and Word 7.0
> (except the folks using Macs). I don't know how long it will take to
> get everyone up to Word97.
Hyperlinks and jumping are features that are most relevant to information
delivery applications (e.g. web browsers, WinHelp, Acrobat) rather than
word processing applications. I'm not aware of any sort of automatic
"jump" capability in any version of Word unless you start writing a slew
of macros that use the EditGoTo command. And considering what horror
stories I've been hearing about Word97, I'd urge caution unless you are
absolutely certain that you need some of its new features and can afford
to put up with its known bugs.
> Since this document is considered a "living document" and I want other
> people to be able to extract information to use in their own
> departmental memos, creating a help file is not practical. Nor is a
> collection of .htm files.
I don't see why you dismiss HTML in this regard. If people will only
need to use snippets of content, all common web browsers allow you to
select and copy displayed text for pasting into other Windows apps. If
access to complete, formatted documents is necessary, you can simply edit
the HTML files to include links to source documents (presumably Word
files, but any type of file can be linked to) that are on the same
server.
> Does anyone know of an add-on to Word 7.0 that can create
> intradocument jumps? Does Word97 support this?
I think the real answer is converting to HTML, preferrably with a full-
featured tool like HTML Transit rather than Word's built-in Save As HTML
capability. With HTML Transit, all cross-references in the Word source
files are automatically converted to hyperlinks, and adding
inter-document
links or links to source files is quite simple to do with a simple HTML
editor (or any text editor, actually) if you invest a couple of hours
learning a few fundamentals of HTML.
Fred Ridder
f -dot- ridder -at- dialogic -dot- com
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