Picking Up Where You Left Off

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 25, 2026)

If you find yourself working on the same document in multiple editing sessions, you can use this tip to get started faster. If you open a document you were editing when you last used Word, you can use the Shift+F5 keyboard combination to quickly jump to where you were last working in the document. This is also a good way to get back to what you were editing after browsing through a document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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