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I use

\begin{lemma} \label{aaa} ... \end{lemma}
\begin{theorem} \label{bbb} ... \end{theorem}

and many other similar kinds in the same document.

When I cross-reference those lemmas and theorems somewhere in the manuscript, I don't remember if I named it a lemma or a theorem, but I perhaps remember the label name. When I just \ref{aaa}, it only gives the number; so I have to put something like Lemma \ref{aaa} or Theorem \ref{bbb}. How can I print "Lemma 1" when it is a lemma, and "Theorem 2", when it is a theorem, without explicitly typing "Lemma" and "Theorem"?

Chang
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    I find RefTeX mightily useful, with some combination of keys it will bring a list of choices to choose from, and it will produce the \ref{aaa} automatically. Too bad not many other software provides this function. – Jiangwei Xue Mar 02 '12 at 06:54
  • I would advise you to name your labels using prefixes like \label{lem:lemma} or \label{theo:theorem} or similar. – basseur Nov 30 '13 at 11:47

1 Answers1

22

hyperref's \autoref function does this for you. It's neat. I believe there's also ntheorem's \thref and the theoremref package. And finally, there is the cleveref package.

To get custom names with hyperref you need to add \newcommand{\xxxautorefname}{Xxx}, e.g.:

\newcommand{\definitionautorefname}{Definition}
\newcommand{\lemmaautorefname}{Lemma}
\newcommand{\remarkautorefname}{Remark}
\newcommand{\propositionautorefname}{Proposition}
\newcommand{\exampleautorefname}{Example}
Jorge E. Cardona
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Seamus
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    \autoref doesn't work out of the box on custom defined theorems. theoremref doesn't seem to work on figures. – Turion Jul 22 '16 at 09:56