Referencing an enumeration item with redefined \labelenumi

Question

I've got the following problem. I redefined the \labelenumi command to get an alphabetic first-order enumeration. If I label an item in this enumeration and generate a reference to it, the number of the item and not the modified label.

A minimal example:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\renewcommand{\labelenumi}{\alph{enumi}.)}

\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
 \item\label{part1} This is the first part. 
 \item We have seen in~\ref{part1}, that this does not work.
\end{enumerate}


\end{document}

gives:

   a.) This is the first part.
   b.) We have seen in 1, that this does not work.

What needs to be refined that \ref prints the character and not the number?

Answer 1

A bare-bones solution is to redefine \theenumi (and, if desired, \labelenumi on top of that).

\documentclass{article}

\renewcommand{\theenumi}{\alph{enumi}}
\renewcommand{\labelenumi}{\theenumi)}

\begin{document}

\begin{enumerate}
 \item\label{part1} This is the first part. 
 \item We have seen in~\ref{part1} that this does not work.
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}

Answer 2

Whenever you're customizing a list, the enumitem is your best friend.

In the code below I've used the \setlist command to customize the enumerate environment. In particular, I've changed the label using

label*=\alph*)

which changes the label to a), b), etc. I've also changed the ref using

ref=\alph*

which means that when you reference it you'll get a, b, c without the parenthesis. If you don't specify a format for ref then it simply inherits the format specified by label.

You can, of course, customize this as you see fit.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\setlist[enumerate]{label*=\alph*),ref=\alph*}

\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
 \item\label{part1} This is the first part. 
 \item We have seen in~\ref{part1}, that this does not work.
\end{enumerate}


\end{document}