Section 9.1. Navigating a Large Document

9.1. Navigating a Large Document

In documents of more than, say, 20 pages, that scroll bar on the right side is way too slow and inaccurate. Instead, it's faster to jump between specific points the document. You can always use the Go To box (Alt+H, G) to jump to a specific page, but what if you don't know the exact page number? Instead, you just know which heading you're looking for. Word gives you quite a few tools to navigate large documents, like bookmarks and browse buttons . Also, a couple of special viewing and navigation tools help you find your way around long documents: the Document Map and Thumbnails (Figure 9-1).

Figure 9-1. Use the shortcut keys Alt+W, VM to open a document map. Click a heading in the Document Map to jump to that location in your document.

• Browse buttons . The Browse buttons at the bottom of the scroll bar are another great tool for navigating documents of any size . By clicking the circular Select Browse Object button, you can choose to browse by headings, endnotes, comments, bookmarks, or pages. Click the double-headed arrow buttons to browse forward or backward through your document.

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  Tip: When you want to return to a place in your text with nothing specific (like a caption or heading) for the browse tools to look for, just attach a comment to it (Section 16.1) like "Come back and edit this," and then you can just browse by comment. Or, use a bookmark, as described next .

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• Bookmarks . Bookmarks are versatile tools in Word and do much more than their humble name implies. Covered in detail in Section 2.3.4, bookmarks are a great way to hop from place to place in your document. When you insert and name a bookmark to mark a page (or a range of pages) with the shortcut Alt+N, K, you can always jump to that spot using the Go To box (Ctrl+G or Alt+H, FD, G).

• Navigate with the Document Map . A document map shows you the headings and subheadings in your document. If you choose View Show/Hide Document Map (or use the shortcut Alt+W, VM), a panel opens on the left side of Word with an outline of your document. When you click a heading, Word scrolls to that part of your document.

• Navigate with Thumbnails . The Thumbnails panel is the document map for the visually oriented. Instead of words, you see mini-pictures of the pages in your document (Figure 9-2). You can't view the Document Map and Thumbnails at the same time. On the ribbon, if you check the box for one, the other disappears. You can use a drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of the panel to change the view from Document Map to Thumbnails.

  

  Figure 9-2. As a navigation tool, thumbnails work best for documents with graphics or pages that are visually distinctive .