Cross References: CS4 to CS3

Background:

My company group uses InDesign CS3 on Windows XP for about 5% of our document needs. The small percentage is primarily due to cost and learning curve issues, but we don't push to move more documents (particularly our engineering reports) from Word to InDesign because of page numbering and cross-referencing issues. The documents are graphics heavy, so this is a shame, particularly with our 300+ page documents that end up as pdfs.

Question:

I've read that cross-referencing has been extensively beefed up in CS4. If I use CS4 to put in cross references and take my document to my CS3 what happens?

Cross References: CS4 to CS3

Cross refs did not exist in CS3. If you bring it back to CS3, they'll

go POOF!

Harbs

Cross References: CS4 to CS3

Moving documents back and forth between versions is not the best idea. I don't know what, if anything, you woould lose in cross-refs going from CS4 to CS3, but I suspect it won't be pretty. There have been reports, too, of cross-refs not coming through well from CS3 to CS4.

Evidently I'm halucinating today. I wonder wher I got the idea that refernces were messed up opeing CS3 in CS4???????????????? Maybe it's hyperlinks.

Pipe dreams. I was hoping that the references would still be visible, just not auto-update. That way I could have a legitimate reason for working offsite and my task could be easier.

Maybe the new fiscal year will temporarily open the corporate wallet around CS5 time. ?Or maybe just a wee bit for Harbs' plug in.

According to the Help file,

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Delete cross-referencesWhen you delete a cross-reference, the source cross-reference is converted to text.1In the Cross-References section of the Hyperlinks panel, select the cross-reference or cross-references you want to delete.2Click the Delete icon, or choose Delete Hyperlink/Cross-Reference from the panel menu.3Click Yes to confirm.To completely remove a cross-reference, you can also select the cross-reference source and delete it.

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''Deleting'' and ''completely removing'' are different, and the characters composing the xref remain in the text if the xref is ''deleted'' (''converted to text'' would be better terminology). You can select and ''delete'' all the xrefs in a document simultaneously, so it's a fast operation. I would then imagine that the text of the ''deleted'' xrefs will survive as text in ID3. You'll just have to try this last bit.

The above is no good if you have to round-trip. I think you then have to buy DTP Tools' Cross-References Pro plug-in and use it to make xrefs in ID4, ignoring ID4's built-in capacities. These xrefs should survive as xrefs in ID3 (with the same plug-in installed), tho' you might want to check with the DTP people on that to be absolutely sure. If you then go back to editing the doc in ID4, the xrefs should still be there, ''live'' as opposed to dead text.

Amazing that your company does tech docs in Word. Upgrading to ID4, or if you're on Windows, switching to FrameMaker, is a better way to go. There are various reports on the Web you can google that contrast Word and FM -- I bet quite a lot is applicable to Word vs ID too. You might be able to put together a persuasive budget request from them.

''Deleting'' and ''completely removing'' are different, and the characters composing the xref remain in the text if the xref is ''deleted'' (''converted to text'' would be better terminology). You can select and ''delete'' all the xrefs in a document simultaneously, so it's a fast operation. I would then imagine that the text of the ''deleted'' xrefs will survive as text in ID3. You'll just have to try this last bit.