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(reftex)Creating Labels

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Next: Referencing Labels Up: Labels and References

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Creating Labels
===============

   In order to create a label in a LaTeX document, press `C-c ('
(`reftex-label').  Just like LaTeX, RefTeX is context sensitive and
will figure out the environment it currently is in and adapt the label
to that environment.  A label usually consists of a short prefix
indicating the type of the label and a unique mark.  RefTeX has 3
different modes to create this mark.

  1. A label can be derived from context.  This means, RefTeX takes the
     context of the label definition and constructs a label from
     that(1).  This works best for section labels, where the section
     heading is used to construct a label.  In fact, RefTeX's default
     settings use this method only for section labels.  You will be
     asked to confirm the derived label, or edit it.

  2. We may also use a simple unique number to identify a label.  This
     is mostly useful for labels where it is difficult to come up with
     a very good descriptive name.  RefTeX's default settings use this
     method for equations, enumerate items and footnotes.  The author
     of RefTeX tends to write documents with many equations and finds
     it impossible to come up with good names for each of them.  These
     simple labels are inserted without query, and are therefore very
     fast.  Good descriptive names are not really necessary as RefTeX
     will provide context to reference a label (Note: Referencing
     Labels).

  3. The third method is to ask the user for a label.  This is most
     useful for things which are easy to describe briefly and do not
     turn up too frequently in a document.  RefTeX uses this for
     figures and tables.  Of course, one can enter the label directly
     by typing the full `\label{mark}'.  The advantage of using
     `reftex-label' anyway is that RefTeX will know that a new label
     has been defined.  It will then not be necessary to rescan the
     document in order to access this label later.

   If you want to change the way certain labels are created, check out
the variable `reftex-insert-label-flags' (Note: Options (Creating
Labels)).

   If you are using AUCTeX to write your LaTeX documents, you can set
it up to delegate the creation of labels to RefTeX. Note: AUCTeX, for
more information.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Note that the context may contain constructs which are illegal
in labels.  RefTeX will therefore strip the accent from accented
Latin-1 characters and remove everything else which is not legal in
labels.  This mechanism is safe, but may not be satisfactory for
non-western languages.  Check the following variables if you need to
change things: `reftex-translate-to-ascii-function',
`reftex-derive-label-parameters', `reftex-label-illegal-re',
`reftex-abbrev-parameters'.