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Creating and Using Bookmarks in Word 2010

Benefits of using bookmarks in Microsoft Word 2010:

  1. Bookmarks identify important text and provide the reader with a quick way to navigate through long documents.
  2. Bookmarks are an easy way to "refer" a reader to another location in a document. For example, the text "Figure 1 shows..." could be cross-referenced to the actual Figure 1 a page later in the document.

Identifying and Creating Bookmarks in your Document


Bookmarks are also known as the "link to" location or the reference point in your document.


It is a good idea to identify document bookmarks after your first draft is complete and not while you are still adding content. The reference points, or bookmarks, need to be established before you can create links from other points in the document to those reference points.

  1. Click in the location of your document where you want like to add a bookmark. For example, "Figure 1."
  2. From the Insert tab, select Bookmark.
  3. Name your bookmark, or reference point. For example, the bookmark for "Figure 1" might be "figure1."
  4. Click the Add button when you are finished creating your bookmark.
  5. After you have gone through steps 1-4 and clicked Add you are brought back to your document. If you are in normal view, there may not necessarily be any bookmark identifiers in your document.
  6. Repeat for any reference points you would like to link to in your document.

Linking to Bookmarks within your Document

  1. Highlight and select with your cursor the text that will be linked to a bookmark. For example, "See Figure 1 on page 6" would be selected because it would be linking to "Figure 1."
  2. From the Insert tab, select Hyperlink.
  3. From the Insert Hyperlink window, select Place in this Document.
  4. Select a bookmark to link your text to from the list.
  5. The highlighted text you selected should be displayed in the Insert Hyperlink window.
  6. When you are finished, click the OK button.
  7. Your text should now by hyperlinked to your bookmark. To test the link, press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click the text. It should take you to your bookmark. In the example this page has been using, the text would bring you to "Figure 1" when clicked.
  8. Repeat for each bookmark you created in the first section.
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Last modified: Jun 27, 2011, 16:21 EDT