Why does Office 365 word insert figure images in front of its cross reference when updating all links?

I am working on a document in Office 365. In this document I have several figures with captions (added via the insert caption functionality). I reference these figures in the main text using cross references. Now it was time to update all my cross references, but when I select everything in the document Ctrl + a and press F9 , it not only updates the cross references but also pastes the entire figure image in front of every cross reference in the text. I never had this happen to me and don't know how to solve it. How can I get back to the expected behavior where updating all links just updates the cross reference text? Thanks a lot.

• microsoft-word
• microsoft-office

1 Answer 1

When you insert a cross-reference, Word creates a hidden bookmark at the location. Its name starts with "_Ref" followed by a long random number. You can see the names of these bookmarks by opening the Insert > Bookmark dialog and enabling "Hidden bookmarks".

Apparently, your figures were included in the bookmark, so it covers not just the label and number but the entire figure and caption.

To fix such references :

• Identify and locate the figure that corresponds to the cross-reference
• Reduce the selection to just the label and number
• Open the Bookmark dialog, click the bookmark name, and click the Add button
• After resizing all the incorrect bookmarks, update all the fields by pressing Ctrl + A (select all) and then F9 (update fields).

The cross-references should now be correct. In the future, be careful to select only the parts you wish to include in the cross-reference.