How do I save my place in Word 2010?

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Simple question. I’m reviewing some Word documents using Office 2010. But every time I close Word, and then open the document again, it shows the beginning of the document, not where I left off.
How do I mark the place where I last left the cursor? I don’t remember this problem in Word 2000 or Word 97.

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Without changing the document you can’t save your place.
In Word 2010, Shift-F5 takes you to the last editing point in the document.

To store the most recent edit point in a document that you have saved, you can make use of some macros. MVP Graham Mayor has posted the following code elsewhere:

Sub FileSave()
On Error Resume Next
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Add Range:=Selection.Range, name:=”OpenAt”
ActiveDocument.Save
End Sub

Sub FileSaveAs()
On Error Resume Next
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Add Range:=Selection.Range, name:=”OpenAt”
Dialogs(wdDialogFileSaveAs).Show
End Sub

Sub AutoOpen()
If ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Exists(“OpenAt”) = True Then
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“OpenAt”).Select
End If
End Sub

For assistance with the macros, see http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm.

[stolen from a post by Stefan Blom elsewhere] This still takes you to the last editing position since it requires a save and Word won’t save a document that hasn’t been changed.

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Thanks for the quick reply, Charles Kenyon.
Even if I make a change in my document and save it, it always opens up at the beginning the next time it opens.
Macros seem a bit much for such a simple problem. I’ll stick to pencil and paper (remember them?) to write down the page number and first words of the paragraph where I stopped.

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It would be quicker to add a bookmark to the document, and then just go to the bookmark when you next open the document. I use a bookmark called “tohere” for this purpose and just reposition it before I close the document.

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It would be quicker to add a bookmark to the document, and then just go to the bookmark when you next open the document. I use a bookmark called “tohere” for this purpose and just reposition it before I close the document.

The only version that needs anything special done (via a bookmark/macro) is Word 2007. Even though other versions re-open the file at the start, simply pressing Shift-F5 takes you to the last edit point. Adding a bookmark somewhere before saving simply makes that the last edit point. No Word version can open a document at the last place viewed/edited. To do so would require a command-line switch and there isn’t one for this. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/210565

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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AuthorAnne, thank you. That’s exactly what I was looking for.

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macropod, I tried Shift-F5 and it doesn’t do anything. F5 alone brings up brings up a Find/Replace/GoTo window that opens in GoTo but I still need the bookmark to get where I want to go (unless I previously wrote down the exact page, paragraph or line number). It doesn’t let me go to the last edit point.

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Works fine for me…

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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You’re right, it does work. Don’t know why nothing happened when I tried it earlier.

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I just put “xxxxx” in the document and search for that when I come back. I also do that when I’m editing a document with a lot of back-and-forth edits.

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Simple solution. You can insert an asterisk, or any other character, as a marker at the point you finished reading. Then when you re-open the document Shift+F5 will take you to that marker. Delete the marker, continue reviewing.

David

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In fact there is no need to use a bookmark or any other character. Create a phantom edit at the place you want to return to by typing any character followed by Backspace to delete it. This will ‘dirty’ the document and if you now Save and Close the document now, when you next open the document Shift+F5 will take you straight back to the phantom edit point.

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I use shift-F5 quite often with a large document I work with almost daily using Word 2010. It usually works great, but about a third of the time it does nothing. I have no idea why.

Brian
Austin, TX

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