Unable to crosslink in LO

I think this will help as to what I’m doing.

The reference in this text:

Lower extremity peripheral artery disease (PAD) affects at least 8.5 million people [1] nationwide and more than 200 million worldwide. It is responsible for causing over over 143,000 hospitalizations and 40,000 amputations annually.

the [1] has to crosslink – or go to – with this text:

Shamoun, F, Sural N, Abela G. Peripheral artery disease; therapeutic advances. Expert Rev of Cardiovacs Ther. c2008 [cited 10 Jan 2014] Volume 6, [539-53] Available from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14779072.6.4.539?scroll=top&needAccess=true

I’ve followed this information:

https://help.libreoffice.org/Writer/Inserting_Cross-References#To_Insert_a_Target

Then followed these steps:

To Insert a Target

Select the text that you want to use as a target for the cross-reference.
Choose Insert - Cross-reference.
In the Type list, select “Set Reference”.
Type a name for the target in the Name box. The selected text is displayed in the Value box.
Click Insert. The name of the target is added to the Selection list.

Leave the dialog open and proceed to the next section.

To Create a Cross-Reference to a Target

Position the cursor in the text where you want to insert a cross-reference.
Choose Insert - Cross-reference to open the dialog, if it is not open already.
In the Type list, select "Insert Reference".
In the Selection list, select the target that you want to cross-reference.
In the Insert reference to list, select the format for the cross-reference. The format specifies the type of information that is displayed as the cross-reference. For example, "Reference" inserts the target text, and "Page" inserts the page number where the target is located. For footnotes the footnote number is inserted.

Click Insert.

Click Close when finished.

I’m missing something big time…

When I follow these steps, I end up with the
Shamoun, F, Sural N, Abela G. Peripheral artery disease; therapeutic advances. Expert Rev of Cardiovacs Ther. c2008 [cited 10 Jan 2014] Volume 6, [539-53] Available from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14779072.6.4.539?scroll=top&needAccess=true

in the [1] and clicking on all of that text moves the supposed [1] to the reference below

Shamoun, F, Sural N, Abela G. Peripheral artery disease; therapeutic advances. Expert Rev of Cardiovacs Ther. c2008 [cited 10 Jan 2014] Volume 6, [539-53] Available from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14779072.6.4.539?scroll=top&needAccess=true

It’s not clear to me what you are doing: cross-reference to headings? Bibliographic database entries? Hyperlinks? Please, edit your question to provide more information (what you did, what you obtained, what you need) and, possibly, a sample file.

You need to use a bibliographic database. LibO includes one, but it needs some work to get it working (you need to fill the database, create and set a bibliographic index, format the fields…). I describe the whole process in detail in my book, but if you don’t want to mess with this tool you can also “cheat” a bit to get a similar result by using a numbered list and cross-references. Here it’s the process. At the end of the document insert a numbered list with the target text; now in the point you need the reference go to Insert → Field → More Fields → Cross Reference tab and select Numbered Paragraphs, where you’ll find the list of all your items: on the bottom-left you can pick what you need (the number, the text, the page…).

Another popular option to build a bibliography is to use Zotero, but that need some learning too.


EDIT: check this sample file for the “numbered list + cross-reference” trick:

Biblio.odt|attachment

EDIT 2: a screenshot

I’m not sure what to do about the [1] in the body copy. When I do this, the target text (the reference field from below, shows the same in the [1]. I need the [1] to make the jump down to the 1st target that’s partof the references section.

So basically:

[1] jumps to the first reference
[2] jumps the second reference
[3] jumps to the third reference
And so on and so forth

I’m not sure what to do about the [1] in the body copy. When I do this, the target text (the reference field from below, shows the same in the [1]. I need the [1] to make the jump down to the 1st target that’s partof the references section.

So basically:

[1] jumps to the first reference [2] jumps the second reference [3] jumps to the third reference And so on and so forth

Check the sample file I added to my original answer. The “jump” part should work out of the box.

Thanks for this. I’m probably dense as I’ve been at this for over 2 days. I did this last year and remember having a problem with it I keep thinking it should be something I’m missing that it’s ridiculously simple. I’m not sure what you mean about the “dummy” text that’s the [number] and how to get to to jump. I had it jumping backwards with the bottom reference filling the [1] spot and also where it’s supposed to go.

“Dummy text” is just a filling, nothing important. Do you see the numbers between brackets in the first paragraph bellow the section heading? Those numbers are cross-reference fields and should display a gray background (that background is not printed nor exported to PDF). Click on any of the numbers and the cursor will jump to the corresponding target text.

I’m not quite sure how I get the dummy text to jump down to the reference text. I thinking I’m getting bug-eyed now!

It’s not the “dummy text,” but the reference number: click on [1] or [2], those are the references.

OK, I’ve got the grey number in the [ ]. How do I get it to jump? In other words, how should I set up the numbered reference “list”, should it be a bookmark or something else?

Ex:

  1. Shamoun, F, Sual N, Abela G. Peripheral…

At some point, this is going to be an A-ha moment. Not quite there yet.

Sorry, but in the sample file I attached to my original answer, did you try to do a click on the number itself? I’ll add a screenshot.

Is it possible to talk me though this. So far, I have a bookmark “Target for reference 1” with a gray box. Not sure how I get that to pick up the chunk of text in my first reference. All of this for a medical article going into a peer-reviewed journal.

I meant not talk but “talk” a kind of step by step.

It seems I’m not understanding what you do not understand here… I provided a quick mechanism for a link from one part of the document to a list of references on another part of the same document, but I’m suspecting now that that’s not what you want. If you want to link to a web site from your document, you need an hyperlink: select the “anchor point” (any portion of text can be used) and press Ctrl Alt k (same as Insert → Hyperlink) to get a dialog where you can set the url associated to that text.

I saw the arrow come up for each, but the corresponding text didn’t jump.

I get the grey box, but it doesn’t “pointing finger” like yours does.

I don’t need to hyperlink the URL for the doctor reference, just the actual text lines really. This has been a difficult one to explain, but I think I’m starting to get it (hopefully). The grey [1] box needs to point to the text part of the target reference. Once it jumps, the URL that’s there (just a citing for an online source) would only just sit there. I just need to go to the text-based part of the reference.

Bug-eyed for sure…or just dense after two days.

I guess at the end of the day, I’m trying to figure out how to get the “pointing finger” and how to get it to jump to its corresponding chunk of text.