How to rename a reference?

Question

In Writer, there exist an option to create references for futher "inserting". That's mean: select some word, then click Insert > Cross-reference. In the new window, select "Set reference" in the "Type" area, and give it some name, for example Reference1. Then click "Insert" button. The reference in successfully created.

But how I can rename it in the future? For example, from Reference1 to Reference5 (or something more meaningful)?

Answer 1

This is a known limitation of LibreOffice, listed as a bug at https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43254.

However it is possible to rename the reference by unzipping the ODT file and editing content.xml with a text editor. Search and replace all occurrences of Reference1.

Answer 2

I have found an alternative solution using a LibreOffice Writer extension.

Install the extension

Install the Alternative Find & Replace for Writer (AltSearch) extension for Libre Office (compatible with version 3.3+). Download the extension then in Writer go to Tools > Extension Manager then click Add and select the file for the extension you downloaded.

The extension is accessible via Edit > Alt. Find & Replace or by clicking on this icon in the toolbar:

Perform the replacement

Using the example in the original post, let's say we have set a cross-reference named reference1 with the value test which we want to rename to reference5. Let's say we also have also inserted one or more cross-references in the document referring to the set cross-reference. Open the alternative find & replace and carry out the following steps:

In Search for:

• Alternative 1: type [::ReferenceMark::]\\Reference1 in the box.
• Alternative 2: select Cross-ref. marker (text) from the Extended drop down menu and add \\Reference1 manually to the search box).

In Replace:

• Alternative 1: type \B{Reference5|\o} in the box.
• Alternative 2: select Insert marker+text for cross-reference from the Replace drop down menu. In the box, replace ref1 with Reference5 and replace text with \o.
• Note: if you want to change the value of the set cross-reference at the same time, replace \o with the new value.

Click replace all to perform the replacement.

At this point, all we've done is change the set cross-reference. Any inserted cross-references in the document will now point to a set cross-reference which no longer exists, so we have to change those too. These steps assume that the inserted cross-references display the value of the set cross-reference (as opposed to e.g. the page number or some other attribute). See breakdown further below if you need to update other types of cross-references.

In Search for:

• Alternative 1: type [::Reference::]\\Reference1 in the box.
• Alternative 2: select Cross-reference (text) from the Extended drop down menu and add \\Reference1 manually to the search box).

In Replace:

• Alternative 1: type \L{2,0,Reference5} in the box.
• Alternative 2: select Insert cross-reference to marker from the Replace drop down menu. In the box, replace 0,0 with 2,0 and replace ref1 with Reference5.

Click replace all to perform the replacement.

Breakdown

In [::ReferenceMark::]\\Reference1:

• [::ReferenceMark::] means we are searching for a set cross-reference.
• \\ means we want to find the reference by its name.
• Reference1 is the name of the reference we are searching for.

In \B{Reference5|\o}:

• \B means we will replace the found reference with a new one.
• Reference5 is the name for the new reference.
• \o means the value of the new reference will be the value of the old reference that was found.

In [::Reference::]\\Reference1:

• [[:Reference:]] means we are searching for an inserted cross-reference.
• \\ means we want to find the reference by the name that it refers to.
• Reference1 is the name of the reference that we are searching for.

In \L{2,0,Reference5}:

• \L means we will replace the inserted cross-reference with a new inserted cross-reference.
• 2 means that the new inserted-cross reference will be of type "reference" i.e. it will display the value of the set cross-reference.
• 0 means the type of the reference is a set cross-reference (as opposed to a numbered paragraph etc.).
• Reference5 is the name that the new inserted cross-reference will refer to.

To do replacements of other types of cross-references (e.g. to page numbers) the 2 will need to be modified to one of the following (extracted from the documentation):

0 - page number in Arabic numerals, 1 - chapter number, 2 - the reference text , 3 - above/below , 4 - page number using the numbering type defined in the page style, 5 - category and number of a caption, 6 - caption text, 7 - number of a sequence field (caption)

Other uses

On a separate note, the extension provides all kinds of other useful functionality which is missing in the standard find and replace. For example you can replace all instances of a style with another style (this being the original reason I installed it), and almost anything else you can think of. Refer to the extension's homepage for detailed (if somewhat hard to parse) instructions.