diff --git a/text-crossrefs/README.md b/text-crossrefs/README.md
index 3de0350..38ba13a 100644
--- a/text-crossrefs/README.md
+++ b/text-crossrefs/README.md
@@ -263,10 +263,10 @@ and should be collapsed by the macro when it is desirable:
 # Customization
 
 Most of the customization variables expect a string.
-In this case, they must not contain Markdown markup
-and all breakable spaces must be replaced with the HTML entity ` `:
-otherwise, only the first word is taken into account and leading and trailing spaces are ignored.
-See `sample-with-options.md` for examples.
+In this case, all Markdown markup will be ignored.
+To prevent leading and trailing spaces to be stripped by Pandoc,
+they must be replaced with HTML entities (` `):
+see `sample-with-options.md` for examples.
 
 ## Common options {#common-opts}
 
diff --git a/text-crossrefs/sample-with-options.md b/text-crossrefs/sample-with-options.md
index 2e1642a..27930db 100644
--- a/text-crossrefs/sample-with-options.md
+++ b/text-crossrefs/sample-with-options.md
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ tcrf-pagenote-first-type: note
 tcrf-range-separator: '-'
 tcrf-references-enum-separator: ';'
 tcrf-multiple-delimiter: '; '
-tcrf-multiple-before-last: '; and '
+tcrf-multiple-before-last: '; and '
 tcrf-additional-types:
 - line
 tcrf-range-delim-crossrefenum: '\>'
diff --git a/text-crossrefs/text-crossrefs.lua b/text-crossrefs/text-crossrefs.lua
index 6b4079b..0507c22 100644
--- a/text-crossrefs/text-crossrefs.lua
+++ b/text-crossrefs/text-crossrefs.lua
@@ -136,18 +136,17 @@ local function set_configuration_item_from_metadata(item, metamap)
   local metakey = 'tcrf-' .. string.gsub(item, '_', '-')
   if metamap[metakey] then
     if IS_CONFIG_ARRAY[item] then
-      -- The metadata values is a list of MetaInlines,
-      -- each of them contains a single Str.
+      -- The metadata values is a list of MetaInlines.
       for _, value_metalist in ipairs(metamap[metakey]) do
-        table.insert(config[item], value_metalist[1].text)
+        table.insert(config[item], stringify(value_metalist))
       end
     else
       local value = metamap[metakey]
       if type(value) == 'boolean' then
         config[item] = value
       else
-        -- The metadata value is a single Str in a MetaInlines.
-        config[item] = value[1].text
+        -- The metadata value is a MetaInlines.
+        config[item] = stringify(value)
       end
     end
   end