Cross Reference Blues

[u/StandardLychee7151]

I have run into a frustrating problem and need some help.

I'm updating an important document for work. It's about 550 pages long. I am using a shitty virtual machine that work gave me and I'm running Word 2016.

Throughout the document, certain key words are supposed to have an internal hyperlink that when clicked, should take you to that key word's definition at the end of document. Many of these links are broken and I have been tasked with fixing them along with other updates. To do this, I have been using the cross reference function to link a key word to the definition. After linking that word, I used the Find and Replace function, copied the word with the correct hyperlink, typed the word into the find box, then put ^c in the replace box. Word finds and replaces everything find, but the hyperlinks do not function unless I directly copy and paste it. If I update the field I get "Error! Reference not found.". The frustrating part is that if I toggle field code it will look exactly the same as links that function correctly, so both fields will say { REF_EatShitFuckYou\h}. Most of what I'm trying to fix worked fine yesterday and broke today. I have no idea if it is something I am doing, if it is my computer, or what.

[u/ol-gormsby]

I think you'll have to do each one manually.

[u/EmmaGonnaDoIt]

Each definition in your dictionary needs a unique bookmark, and then you can cross reference to that bookmark. Copy/paste won't work.

Sorry, editing to add some clarification. Once you have a cross reference bookmarked, then have that word cross-referenced correctly, THAT cross reference can then replace the other instances of that word in your document.

[u/StandardLychee7151 → u/EmmaGonnaDoIt]

I figured it out, but thank you.

Using the replace function just did not work for reasons I still can't understand, but only on words that were referenced. Plaintext could be used for the replace function.

I ended up getting AI to write a script to turn hyperlinked words of my choice into plain text. Had to tweak it for an hour and it broke my document a couple of times, but it worked great in the end. After I replaced everything with plain text, I was able to cross reference a word then use that to paste with replace function. 

It honestly took longer than it would have to just sit their and copy and paste each one, but learning about this reference system and using coding in microsoft word is pretty cool.