References with text in LaTeX

97
votes

In LaTeX you can easily reference a section by using \label{} next to a section and then \ref{} to create the reference. However, the reference only includes the number of the section, or the page with \pageref{}. I would like to insert a reference containing the text of the section.

Example:

\section{My Section}
\label{section:my}

This is a reference to Section~\ref{section:my}.

The output is the following:

1. My Section

This is a reference to Section 1.

I would like to have:

This is a reference to 1. My Section.
3
latex
Duplicate. See my answer to 522838. – Will Robertson
not to sound like an ass, but having the whole block of text that you are cross referencing kind of defeats the purpose of a cross reference... – Mica
There's also tex.stackexchange.com now. – mrmagooey
Does this answer your question? How do I emit the text content of a reference in LaTeX? – MattAllegro

3 Answers

101
votes

Have a look to this wiki: LaTeX/Labels and Cross-referencing:

The hyperref package automatically includes the nameref package, and a similarly named command. It inserts text corresponding to the section name, for example:

\section{MyFirstSection}
\label{marker}
\section{MySecondSection} In section \nameref{marker} we defined...
17
votes

I think you can do this with the hyperref package, although I've not tried it myself. From the relevant LaTeX Wikibook section:

The hyperref package introduces another useful command; \autoref{}. This command creates a reference with additional text corresponding to the targets type, all of which will be a hyperlink. For example, the command \autoref{sec:intro} would create a hyperlink to the \label{sec:intro} command, wherever it is. Assuming that this label is pointing to a section, the hyperlink would contain the text "section 3.4", or similar (capitalization rules will be followed, which makes this very convenient). You can customize the prefixed text by redefining \typeautorefname to the prefix you want, as in:

\def\subsectionautorefname{section}

10
votes

Using the hyperref package, you could also declare a new command by using \newcommand{\secref}[1]{\autoref{#1}. \nameref{#1}} in the pre-amble. Placing \secref{section:my} in the text generates: 1. My section.