Building on the discussion led in the preceding comments, here's a solution that employs the \hypertarget
/\hyperlink
mechanism of the hyperref package to create cross-references that show text strings rather than numbers.
The commands \hypertarget
and \hyperlink
both take 2 arguments. \hypertarget
creates a target; the first argument becomes the internal name of the target, and the second determines what's shown in the document. \hyperlink
creates a link to the target created by \hypertarget
. The first arguments of \hypertarget
and \hyperlink
must coincide, while the second arguments needn't, as is also shown in the following MWE (minimum working example).
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[colorlinks,linkcolor=blue]{hyperref}
\begin{document}
\begin{description}
\item[FOO] \dots
\item[\hypertarget{list:test}{\textbf{TEST}}] \dots
\item[BAR] \dots
\end{description}
As was demonstrated in the \hyperlink{list:test}{TEST} item of the preceding list, \dots
\end{document}

\hyperlink
/\hypertarget
mechanism of thehyperref
package be acceptable? – Mico May 10 '20 at 5:16\cref``/
\Cref` to create the reference? Ideally, for consistency purposes, I would like to stick with using the\cref
/\Cref
command to create references (whethercleverref
is used under the hood I have no strong opinions about. From an outcome perspective, if I had to use a different command but had consistent behaviour for all references throughout the document, I would not mind. – David Poxon May 10 '20 at 5:20cleveref
works by greatly extending LaTeX's basic\label
/\ref
mechanism. LaTeX associates the argument of\label
with the most recently incremented counter variable. (E.g., each time a\section
directive is executive, thesection
counter is incremented.) Unlike theenumerate
list environment, thedescription
list environment does not increment a counter variable when an\item
directive is encountered. You'd have to graft some kind of secondary counter mechanism onto thelist
environment -- and associate the new counters with the description list test items. Ugly... – Mico May 10 '20 at 5:32enumerate
environment, you (more precisely,cleveref
) would be all set to go. However, the cross-reference call-out produced by\cref
would be a number, not the implicit or explicit label associated with that number. This is why I was thinking about employing the\hyperlink
/\hypertarget
mechanism. – Mico May 10 '20 at 5:44