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:Author: 		Tobias Schlitt
:Date:			Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:29:46 +0100
:Revision: 		1
:Copyright:		CC by-nc-sa


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OpenOffice.org annoyance: Cross references
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:Description:
    I really like OpenOffice.org. Until now, it satisfied any of my needs
    quite fine. But since I am writing a book using OpenOffice.org, I found
    some really annoying stuff. Most annoying by now, is the problem of cross
    references. It happens almost in every text section, that I need to add a
    reference to another section of the book. For example, while writing about
    securing user data I want to point to the section of a database chapter,
    where prevention of SQL injection is explained. I basically want to add a
    reference like 'See section X.Y.Z, "SQL injection"'.

I really like `OpenOffice.org`__. Until now, it satisfied any of my needs
quite fine. But since I am writing a book using OpenOffice.org, I found some
really annoying stuff. Most annoying by now, is the `problem of cross
references`__. It happens almost in every text section, that I need to add a
reference to another section of the book. For example, while writing about
securing user data I want to point to the section of a database chapter, where
prevention of SQL injection is explained. I basically want to add a reference
like 'See section X.Y.Z, "SQL injection"'.

.. __: http://www.openoffice.org/
.. __: http://www.google.com/search?q=open+office+cross+reference

Just adding a simple reference, which points to another headline of the same
document and automatically gets updated if the headline text or number
changes, is already a pain in OpenOffice.org. Headlines are not referenceable
by default, which means, that you manually need to add a reference target to
each of the headlines you want to reference. If you did so, you can make
openoffice insert a reference to this target.

At this point the next issue comes into place: OpenOffice.org only allows to
use a very limited set of formatings for the reference to be displayed. While
you can use the chapter number as a reference, it seems not to be possible to
use the headline text in addition or to create your own format, like I need
it. Therefore, the basic reference handling of OpenOffice.org is kinda useless
for me.

Searching the web left me with 2 solutions: a) Wait for `OpenOffice.org
3.0`__, where enhanced reference handling planned as part of the
`bibliographic enhancements`__. Sure, I just need to postpone my project for
some years... b) Make use of a custom macro. The latter solution sounds much
more practical to me. While I first thought this problem must be very common
for authors, Google tought me the opposite. So far I only found `1 macro`__
(see OutlineCrossRef3.sxw), which was written in 2003 and last updated in
2004. The macro at least solves parts of my problems: It provides a list of
all headings in a document and, on demand, creates a reference target to one
of them and inserts a reference at the current cursor position. Still
remaining here: The formatting functionality does not satisfy my needs. You
can specify some characters to be placed between different parts of the
reference (like between the headline number and text), but still no real
custom format.

.. __: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Features#Planned_Features_for_3.0_Release
.. __: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Bibliographic_Project%27s_Developer_Page#2nd_Stage_Bibliographic_Facility_Redevelopment
.. __: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/hillview/OOo/

I'm quite shocked that this feature, for me absolutly essentiell for writing
larger documents, is almost not realized in `OpenOffice.org`__. Or did I miss
something? Is there anyone out there, who solved the issues? Or do I really
have to dig into a macro language of OpenOffice.org and implement the feature
on my own? Any hint welcome! Thanks in advance!

.. __: http://www.openoffice.org/


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Comments
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- Thomas Koch at Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:09:43 +0200

  I felt the same pain when I wrote a document which should include a glossary
  at the end. I didn't found any nice and easy solution and so I went back to
  write the short thing in ReST.

  I'm only wondering, why you choosed OpenOffice in the first place. As you're
  a geek, I thought you'd use LaTex or Docbook.

  OpenOffice can save as DocBook and export to LaTex though I've not yet used
  it.

- Toby at Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:14:11 +0200

  As you might have noticed, this post is about writing a book. Therefore the
  publisher defines the formats to use. If I would have decided to use Latex,
  which was my preference at first, I would need to do all the composing work
  on my own, which would be much too time consuming and enoying. Therefore I
  decided for OpenOffice.org, since M$ Office was not an option for me.

- jeroen at Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:21:24 +0200

  Hi, same here. However now we have OOO 3.0 and you can cross link to
  chapters directly, but it does not work :( After generating a master doc, a
  lot of (some do, some don't) links loose source "chapter reference not found
  open office'". :( Still I think it is great software :)

- Wittyblogger.com at Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:18:08 +0200

  Beware of this site, that may be linked on popular websites (search
  engines), Emails and stuff! Seems like they are collecting Orkut user data

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- The Sleepy Blogger at Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:23:19 +0200

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- Gronk Crumpshaw at Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:00:15 +0100

  Has this been fixed in the OpenOffice?

  So far, no can do this worky, 

  bad bad bad software malwares