Cross-reference items in linked documents

[Mark Elson]

Hi,

We have textual requirements modelled in EA for which we then use eaDocX to export into a requirements document. Some of those textual requirements need a figure or table attached (not an EA diagram, typically provided by customer) and, so far, I have done that by pasting the figure or table into the requirement linked document.

1) Ideally, I’d like to be able to make use of the figure/table numbering and cross-referencing features provided by Word but I can’t see how to do this with these items in linked docs.

2) It looks like (from the eaDocX help) that this could be achieved if the figures/tables were pasted onto a diagram (child of the requirement) instead and then use the EA hyperlink/manual cross-reference method.

Is there a technique to achieve 1)? If not I’ll go down the 2) route.

Thank you,

Mark

[eadocX Support]

Hi Mark,
Linked documents are a problem for eaDocX. We just never know what we’re going to find in them, so, when they get put into Word, the results are unpredictable. When we first implemented the feature, I think I got some of the heading numbering to work OK, bu I never tried diagram- or table-numbering.
If people have rich content as you’re describing , then I advise (2): it’s just an image, and it’s hard to mess that up.
An alternative (3) might be to put the stuff into Excel – tables or graphics – and embed the Excel content, but that doesn’t work well if lots of requirements have the same content.

[Mark Elson]

Thanks for that. I’ve gone down the 2) route. A couple of issues:

i) the background of inserted pictures, where the original has no background (is transparent), comes out black in the Word export which hides most of the figure. Can that be remedied?

ii) eaDocX creates a Figure x caption but if I put in a manual cross-reference to the diagram in the text the exported text/hyperlink just contains the name of the diagram. Is there an option to convert the hyperlink text to state “Figure x”?

Thank you,

Mark

[Author]

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