[twang1985]

Legal documents sometimes reference dozens of exhibits, and I'd like to autonumber/autoletter them with the ability to cross-reference them later on.

Searching around revealed that you can use captions, but I can't get the caption label to behave the way I want it to--it always ends up including all the text in the paragraph in which the caption is inserted. Also, our exhibits are not part of the word document itself, but are typically separate PDFs...

Currently, the problems that tend to arise a

1) Last-minute changes create anomalous numbering. For example, I might realize that I want to add another exhibit between 8 and 9. Typically, we'd just use the next available exhibit number, even if it's out-of-order. E.g.: "At his deposition, Mr. Smith said he was guilty. See Smith Deposition (Exhibit 8). [Added text: Also, Ms. Cohen said he wasn't at work. See Cohen Deposition (Exhibit 30).] Also, Mrs. Jones said she saw him do it. See Jones Deposition (Exhibit 9)." Deleting an exhibit entirely is even more problematic, for obvious reasons.

2) Any change to an exhibit number requires manually going through the document and updating all references to that exhibit.

Ideally, I want to be able to accomplish the following:

"At his deposition, Mr. Smith said he was guilty. See Smith Deposition (Exhibit 8). Also, Mrs. Jones said she saw him do it. See Jones Deposition (Exhibit 9)."

Later in the document:

"Again, Mr. Smith admitted he was guilty. See Smith Deposition (Exhibit 8). Dr. Black also said Mr. Smith's fingerprints were at the scene. See Black Deposition (Exhibit 10)."

Still later in the document:

"There is substantial evidence of Mr. Smith's guilt. See, e.g. Black Deposition (Exhibit 10); see also Jones Deposition (Exhibit 9).

I want all the exhibit numbers in the above example to be fields that update automatically depending on the order in which the document is first discussed. For example, if I decided that I wanted to add the Cohen Deposition before the Jones Deposition, I want the Cohen Deposition to be Exhibit 9, the Jones Deposition to be automatically updated to Exhibit 10, the Black Deposition to Exhibit 11, etc. Further, I want all references to the Jones and Black Depositions to be automatically changed to refer to Exhibits 10 and 11 respectively.

Less ideal, but still very useful, would be if I could create a list of references, and assign them exhibit numbers. For example, if I have 50 exhibits, I'd create 50 references, and manually assign them exhibit numbers. I tried tinkering with the bibliography feature in Word to accomplish this, but failed miserably.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!