Setting a Default for the Object Browser

Nancy uses the Object Browser to look for items in her document, but she gets a bit frustrated with it. When she first starts Word, Ctrl+Page Up jumps up by a page at a time. This happens because the Object Browser is set to browse by page. But if she searches for text and finds it, the Object Brower is then set to browse by whatever she last searched for. This means that Ctrl+Page Up no longer jumps up by a page, but searches for the previous occurrence of the search text. Nancy wonders if there is, perhaps, a way to force the Object Browser to always search for the previous page.

There is no capability to do this in Word. This is because Ctrl+Page Up (and Ctrl+Page Down) aren't really shortcuts to jump to the previous or next page; they are shortcuts to invoke the Browse Previous and Browse Next commands. This means that they are the same as clicking on the previous and next controls in the Object Browser, at the lower-right of any document window.

You can, however, get around this problem by adding two macros to your system. These macros replace the built-in commands that are invoked when you use the previous and next commands in the Object Browser.

Sub BrowsePrev()
    Application.Browser.Target = wdBrowsePage
    Application.Browser.Previous
End Sub

Sub BrowseNext()
    Application.Browser.Target = wdBrowsePage
    Application.Browser.Next
End Sub

Note that these macros cause the Object Browser to revert to browsing by page instead of whatever had been previously selected. The drawback to this approach, however, is that you won't ever be able to use the Object Browser to browse for anything other than pages.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (495) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Setting a Default for the Object Browser.