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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This will allow Smart References to :
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Wallace Mann
October 8, 2023
I was looking for something to number my figures and create references to them. This requires solving two problems: the numbering and the references. A product called Cross Reference can do both, but the naming convention approach was too difficult for me to remember. I like that Smart References maintains a list of referenceable items. Docx2LaTex claims to do both, but I don't need LaTex and there were some scary sounding reviews, so I gave that a pass. The other solution people use for the numbering is the Google numbered list. This is great for compact lists or highly structured documents, like legal documents. That's what is demonstrated in the Smart References video. That approach was too constricting for my document. I ended up deciding that the references were the hard part and I could do the numbering manually. So what I do is use my heading-4 style for figure captions, centered on the page below a figure. The capture includes a manually entered figure number. I use the following form: "Figure 7 (An Imaginary Thing)". That heading-4 appears in the Smart References side panel, and when I select it I can create a sentence like, "As you can see in Figure 7 (An Imaginary Thing), the thing is not real." I use that parenthetical form of figure caption so that the text doesn't look weird in the body. If I put "Figure 7: An Imaginary Thing" as the caption, the text looked odd with the colon in it. What this means is that at the very end of editing my document, I have to go back and manually renumber all of my figures once I know what the final order is. This is ok with me because I only have to do it once for each figure, and in the meantime although the figures might be numbered out of order, at least all the references are correct. So, it's a bit of a compromise from the ideal (thus 4 stars), but it seems to work reliably and not mess up my document. It's fast enough. I like the side panel. For my use case I'm very happy.
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Alena Suvorova
December 26, 2023
It works! It does what it is supposed to do, the tool is pretty easy to use and the video tutorial was clear and helpful. It would be great to have a bit more customization for inserted references, but to ask for it for a free tool would be almost immodest;) Without this tool doing the numbered references to a sources list would be hell... Thanks a lot!:)
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Simon Kahan
November 7, 2023
This would address my needs better if it worked for numbered lists created within tables. Are there any plans to make that happen?
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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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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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domenico guarino
December 7, 2023
Easy to use and effective!
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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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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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Krishna MAHADEA
November 16, 2022
Great tool to manager chapters and bibliographic references within the document
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