How to Add and Use Bookmarks in Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word's bookmark feature lets you quickly find passages in long documents without having to scroll through large blocks of text. Once you bookmark some text, you can create links to it from elsewhere in your document and cross-reference it in other passages. In this article, we'll teach you how to add a bookmark to a Word document and make your bookmarks easy to find. We'll also show you how to link to and cross-reference bookmarks, and cover the simple steps to deleting a bookmark you no longer need.

Create a Bookmark in a Word Document

Click the desired location in your document, or select some text.
Click the Insert tab and select Bookmark.
Type a name for the bookmark and click Add.

Section 1 of 6:

Create a Bookmark

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Select the place in the text you wish to bookmark. You can either highlight a block of text, an object, or an image, or just click to place your cursor at the start of a paragraph.^{[1]
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- If you want to create a table of contents in a Word document, it's easier to do so with heading styles than with bookmarks. Check out our Word table of contents guide to learn more.
If you don't see Bookmark, click the three dots to expand more options.

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Name the bookmark and click Add. Bookmark names have to begin with a letter, but they may contain numbers. Spaces aren't allowed, but you can separate words with an underscore (_), as in "Heading_1."^{[2]
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- Repeat for other bookmarks.
- You won't see any obvious indicators of bookmarks in your document at first. If you want to be able to find them easily on the page, jump to Show Bookmarks In Your Document.

Section 2 of 6:

Show Bookmarks In Your Document

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Click the File menu and select Options. By default, Word doesn't label or mark bookmarks on the page, which can make it hard to see them. You can use these steps to add brackets around bookmarked text.^{[3]
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- If you placed your cursor before a section of text to create a bookmark, you won't see brackets. Instead, you'll see an "I-beam," which is a cursor that looks like a capital I.
- If you're using Word on a Mac, click the Word menu and select Preferences instead.
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Click the Advanced tab. It's in the left panel.
- On a Mac, select Authoring and Proofing Tools > View.
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Check the "Show bookmarks" box and click OK. You'll see this box in the "Show document content" section. When you click OK, your options will be saved, and you'll be able to tell where the bookmarks are in your document.
- On a Mac, check the box next to Bookmarks, and close the dialog window.
- Text within a bookmark can be edited the same as text outside the bookmark. For this reason, it's a good idea to display any bookmarks before editing your text to make sure the bookmarks end up where you want them to end up when you're done editing. For example:
  - If you cut or copy a portion of bookmarked text to a new location, the moved text will not be bookmarked.
  - If you type new text inside the bookmark brackets, the new text becomes part of the bookmarked text.
  - If you delete part of the text inside the bookmark brackets, the bookmark remains with the remaining text.
  - If you cut and paste an entire bookmarked item, including the bookmark itself, to a new location in the same document, the bookmark moves with the moved text; if you do not include the bookmark, it remains where it is in the document.
  - If you copy a bookmarked item to another document, including the bookmark brackets, both the original and the new document will have bookmarks.

Section 3 of 6:

Go to a Bookmark

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Press Control+G. This opens the Find and Replace dialog to the Go To tab.^{[4]
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- If you're using a Mac, press ⌘ Command+⌥ Opt+G instead.
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Select Bookmark. This displays a drop-down menu with all your bookmark names.
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Select a bookmark and click Go To. This takes you to the bookmarked location.
- Alternatively, you can return to the Insert tab, click Bookmarks, select a bookmark name, and click Go To.

Section 4 of 6:

Link to a Bookmark

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Select the text or object you want to use as a hyperlink. You can make any text or object in your document a hyperlink to something you've bookmarked.^{[5]
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Right-click the selected content and click Link. This opens the Insert Hyperlink dialog.
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Click Place in This Document. It's on the left side of the window.
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Select a bookmark and click OK. The text or object you selected is now a hyperlink to the bookmark. Clicking the hyperlink takes you to the bookmarked location in your document.

Section 5 of 6:

Cross-Reference a Bookmark

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Type the text you want to start your cross-reference. You can cross-reference a bookmark easily to link to a bookmarked passage of text. When you cross-reference a bookmark, a link for the bookmark will appear after the text.^{[6]
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- This option can be helpful if you want to cross-reference a bookmarked location and have the text automatically update if you edit the original text.
It's in the ribbon at the top of Word.
In most cases, you'll use the "Bookmark text" option.
A cross-reference will be created to your bookmark. The cross-reference will take the form of a hyperlink in the document, unless you uncheck the "Insert as hyperlink" box.

Section 6 of 6:

Delete a Bookmark

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This opens the Bookmark dialog box.
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Select a bookmark and click Delete. Your bookmark has been deleted. Any text associated with the bookmark remains.
- To delete both the bookmark and its associated text, select the item and press the "Delete" key on your keyboard.

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How do I bookmark a picture?

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Open Word, go to the picture or the content you wan't to bookmark, and click it/edit it. Go up to the magnifying glass, just under the name of the document on top of Word. Search "bookmark", click on Insert a Bookmark, give the bookmark a name, click Add, and OK.

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The Bookmark feature can be used in conjunction with the Split, Arrange All, and View Side by Side features to quickly find and display a particular passage and compare it with other passages in the same document, different documents, or different versions of the same document.

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