Numbering large numbers of exhibits and cross-referencing them

[twang1985]

Legal documents sometimes reference dozens of exhibits, and I'd like to
autonumber/autoletter them with the ability to cross-reference them
later on.

Searching around revealed that you can use captions, but I can't get the
caption label to behave the way I want it to--it always ends up
including all the text in the paragraph in which the caption is
inserted. Also, our exhibits are not part of the word document itself,
but are typically separate PDFs...

Currently, the problems that tend to arise are:

1) Last-minute changes create anomalous numbering. For example, I might
realize that I want to add another exhibit between 8 and 9. Typically,
we'd just use the next available exhibit number, even if it's
out-of-order. E.g.: "At his deposition, Mr. Smith said he was guilty.
See Smith Deposition (Exhibit 8). [Added text: Also, Ms. Cohen said he
wasn't at work. See Cohen Deposition (Exhibit 30).] Also, Mrs. Jones
said she saw him do it. See Jones Deposition (Exhibit 9)." Deleting an
exhibit entirely is even more problematic, for obvious reasons.

2) Any change to an exhibit number requires manually going through the
document and updating all references to that exhibit.

Ideally, I want to be able to accomplish the following:

"At his deposition, Mr. Smith said he was guilty. See Smith Deposition
(Exhibit 8). Also, Mrs. Jones said she saw him do it. See Jones
Deposition (Exhibit 9)."

Later in the document:

"Again, Mr. Smith admitted he was guilty. See Smith Deposition (Exhibit
8). Dr. Black also said Mr. Smith's fingerprints were at the scene.
See Black Deposition (Exhibit 10)."

Still later in the document:

"There is substantial evidence of Mr. Smith's guilt. See, e.g. Black
Deposition (Exhibit 10); see also Jones Deposition (Exhibit 9).

I want all the exhibit numbers in the above example to be fields that
update automatically depending on the order in which the document is
first discussed. For example, if I decided that I wanted to add the
Cohen Deposition before the Jones Deposition, I want the Cohen
Deposition to be Exhibit 9, the Jones Deposition to be automatically
updated to Exhibit 10, the Black Deposition to Exhibit 11, etc.
Further, I want all references to the Jones and Black Depositions to be
automatically changed to refer to Exhibits 10 and 11 respectively.

Less ideal, but still very useful, would be if I could create a list of
references, and assign them exhibit numbers. For example, if I have 50
exhibits, I'd create 50 references, and manually assign them exhibit
numbers. I tried tinkering with the bibliography feature in Word to
accomplish this, but failed miserably.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!




--
twang1985

[Peter T. Daniels]

I can't imagine what you're doing when you try to label your exhibits
with the Caption tool, because if you put your cursor at the start of
the paragraph containing the title of the exhibit, and Insert Caption
[I can't tell you exactly how to do that, because you don't say which
version of Word you're using, and anyway I put the commands on my
Quick Access Toolbar long, long ago], it simply inserts the label and
the consecutive number. (You'll have to use the "Create New Label"
option in the Caption pane, I think.)

And then to insert a reference to an exhibit in the main text, you
simply used Insert Cross Reference, choose the correct list from the
dropdown, choose the one you need, and choose "Only label and number"
from the other menu.

They don't update automatically when you insert a new one and the
numbering changes, but you need to do one of a number of ways to
update -- F9 updates the one that's selected; IIRC Alt-F9 updates all
cross references; or switch into Print Preview and out again.

On Dec 26, 6:51 pm, twang1985 <twang1985.b216...@wordbanter.com>
wrote: