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Smart References is a cross referencing feature for Google Docs. A Smart Reference contains a reference to a heading or numbered list item elsewhere in the document.
Listing updated:December 28, 2022
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Overview
Smart References is a cross referencing feature for Google Docs, which can be installed from the Add-ons menu inside the Docs app. A Smart Reference is a text element that contains a reference to a heading or numbered list item elsewhere in the document. When the document is changed, such as by updating a header or list item number, all the Smart References in the document can be synchronized at once so they display the new header text and list numbers.

Use Smart References instead of regular text to reduce hassle and potential for mistakes when maintaining documents that are structured as numbered lists or that make frequent reference to previous sections. Good examples might be the clauses in a contract or a lengthy dissertation.
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Smart References will ask for the permissions shown below. Learn more
Smart References will need access to your Google account
This will allow Smart References to :
See, edit, create, and delete all your Google Docs documents
Display and run third-party web content in prompts and sidebars inside Google applications
See your primary Google Account email address
See your personal info, including any personal info you've made publicly available
Reviews
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Singh Accounts
May 18, 2023
It would be great if one could choose what as reference because sometimes, simply adding the bullet point is not enough
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Evan Mosier
December 14, 2022
Works great and much better than manually keeping track of everything. Only slight critique is if I have a symbol at the end of my list item it puts that into the text. For example the list item "Table 1:" would insert the colon into the referencing text. Or the number item "1." would have the period in the text. If that could be cleaned up it would be a perfect 5 stars from me.
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Aiden Clasby
October 7, 2022
Very effective tool for writing papers with numeric in-text citations. Video introduction to the tool covers everything you need to know.
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Ben Sudbury
December 15, 2022
So happy that this is available. The thought of living without cross references is too much to bear. Thanks Sealion software for making this available.
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Krishna MAHADEA
November 16, 2022
Great tool to manager chapters and bibliographic references within the document
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Ljuba Veselinova
March 10, 2022
It is a great tool. I have used for inserting cross-references only so I cannot relate to the issues of re-ordering described by other users. Very useful and very easy to use. Google should integrate into docs and its other apps.
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Tim Emmony
May 10, 2022
Absolute winner. Creating a ~40 page document with maybe 300 numbered points is now nowhere near as stressful as it used to be. No more coloured highlighting just in case!
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Vladimir Peter
July 5, 2022
does not work.
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Sergei Wallace
June 12, 2021
Give us the option to format the references how we want! Also, would be nice if when you click a reference with the same Google doc, it highlights it or something to call the reference location to attention.
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Pablo San-Jose
September 9, 2021
Simple and effective. Cannot reorder list items without loosing links, however... Otherwise quite nice to organize references and citations without the hassle and bloat of other solutions
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