Enhancement: Support Clickable and Native Cross-References in .docx Output

[MatrixWise]

Hello,

First of all, thank you for your work on pandoc-crossref! It’s an invaluable tool for those of us who prefer a programmatic, WYSIWYM workflow for document creation.

Background:
I need to produce MS Word documents. My workflow involves writing in Markdown and converting to .docx using pandoc and pandoc-crossref. This approach is efficient and maintainable, but I’ve encountered a limitation with cross-references in the .docx output.

Current Behavior:
Currently, references to images, tables, and paragraphs are rendered as plain text (e.g., “Figure 1”) in the final .docx file. These references are not clickable, nor are they recognized as native Word cross-references.

Proposed Enhancements:
I’d like to propose a two-step enhancement:

1. Clickable Links:
   As a first step, it would be very helpful if pandoc-crossref could generate clickable links in the .docx output, so that references to figures, tables, etc., allow users to jump to the referenced object within the document.

2. Native Word Cross-References:
   As a further improvement, it would be ideal if these references could be recognized as native Word cross-references. This would allow them to appear in the “Cross-reference” dialog under the “References” tab in MS Word, making them easier to manage and update within Word itself.

Benefits:

• Improved navigation and usability in generated .docx documents.
• Better integration with Word’s native referencing features.
• Enhanced workflow for users who rely on Markdown-to-Word conversion.

Thank you for considering this feature request! Please let me know if you need any additional information or clarification.

Best regards