Word Navigation Pane

When reviewing a Microsoft Word document with many pages you may find yourself constantly scrolling up/down or using the Page Up/Page Down keys. To aid in navigating large documents Microsoft added the Navigation Pane starting with Word 2010.

The Navigation Pane is only available when a document contains Heading styles. At a minimum a document must utilize the Heading 1 style. The Navigation Pane will also recognize and use the higher heading styles (2,3,…).

To use the Navigation Pane you must ‘turn it on’ by checking the Navigation Pane check box in the Show section of the View tab on the ribbon.

[Read more…]

Word Browse Object

In addition to the regular ways of navigating a Word document with the mouse or keyboard, Microsoft has provided the Browse Object. The Browse Object are the two double-arrows located at the bottom of the vertical scroll bar.

WordObjectBrowser0

These double-arrows move the insertion point to the previous or next instance of a particular object. The default object browsed is Browse By Page. Therefore, these double-arrows move back and forth between pages of the document.

What most Word users do not know is that you can change the object being browsed to something other than page. For example, if you changed the Browse Object to Browse by Graphic, the double-arrows would then move the insertion point back and forth between all of the graphic images contained in your document.

To change the Browse Object, either click the round button between the double-arrows as shown in the next screen shot, or press ALT+CTRL+HOME on the keyboard.

WordObjectBrowser1

This brings up a small box with twelve icons. The first two icons do not actually modify the Browse Object. They both display the Find and Replace dialog box, although with a different tab having the focus. The remaining icons change the object being browsed to one of the following.

  • Browse by Edits
  • Browse by Heading
  • Browse by Graphic
  • Browse by Table
  • Browse by Field
  • Browse by Endnote
  • Browse by Footnote
  • Browse by Comment
  • Browse by Section
  • Browse by Page

To learn which icon handles which object, hover your mouse over the icon. The object type will be displayed above the icons as shown in the next screen shot.

WordObjectBrowser2

The Browse Object can be a tremendous time saver when navigating large, complex documents. The key is to remember that it even exists!

View VBA Consultants profile on LinkedIn

Copyright 2014 – VBA Consultants Ltd