Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 6, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Bookmarks allow you to assign names to text or to positions in your document. In this way you locate them easily, just like when you put a physical bookmark in a book to save your place. Once a bookmark is defined, you can use the Go To option from the Edit menu to move the insertion point to the bookmark location.
In Word, bookmarks are saved with the document file. Thus, you can assign bookmarks in different files that use the same name. Each file can have up to approximately 450 bookmarks defined. Names for bookmarks must follow these rules:
To insert a bookmark, follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Bookmark dialog box.
A word of warning with bookmarks: they can move! If you define a bookmark as a location only (in other words, you don't select text before defining the bookmark), and then move the text which appears at that location elsewhere, the bookmark stays where it was; it does not move with the text. It is not always intuitive when this will happen. For example, if you insert text ahead of a defined bookmark, the bookmark will stay with the original text. If, however, you position the cursor at the beginning of a bookmarked line and press Enter a few times, the bookmark does not move. The "unmoving bookmarks" become a real pain if you use them within tables, at the beginning of a column. It is not unusual to sort the table and have the bookmarks not move with the text, as you might expect.
The solution to this problem is to anchor the bookmark to selected text (select text and then define the bookmark). However, this produces other side effects. For example, if the selected text includes a complete paragraph (including the paragraph marker), and you add some text in a new line or paragraph, the added text becomes part of the selected text for the bookmark.
Finally, moving or copying bookmarked text to a new document will copy the bookmarks as well as the text. Moving bookmarked text to a new location in the same document also copies the bookmark, but copying bookmarked text to another location in the same document does not replicate the bookmark.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1014) 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: Understanding and Using Bookmarks.
Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!
Create a bookmark and you may, at some future point, need to delete that bookmark. It's easy to do, as described in this tip.
Discover MoreBookmarks are a great boon in developing and working with documents—until someone deletes them. When it comes to ...
Discover MoreIf you develop a macro that needs to work with bookmarks defined in a document, it is inevitable that you will need a way ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)
Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.
Visit the WordTips channel on YouTube
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments