Moving Chapter Heading Breaks Heading Hyperlink

Question

Word version 14.0.6129.5000 (32-bit)

Win7 Pro x64 SP1

Hyperlink a word to a Chapter Heading as follows:

Select a word to hyperlink a Heading to.

Insert menu tab | Links group | Hyperlink button | Insert Hyperlink dialog | Bookmark button

Select a Chapter Heading to link to.

Verify that hyperlink takes you to that Chapter heading.

Go into Outline display.

Drag and Drop your Chapter Heading to a different location.

Verify that hyperlink still takes you to that Chapter heading.

The link takes you not to your Chapter Heading, but to the previous location of the Chapter Heading. Why?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Headings are bookmarked automatically, but their bookmarks do not show the brackets (which are reserved for user-defined bookmarks). In addition, these bookmarks are listed in the Bookmark dialog only if they have been cross-referenced. In that case, you can see them if you check the box for "Hidden bookmarks" and select the radio button for Location.

These bookmarks will be of the form _Ref353357495 (that is, _Ref followed by nine digits). You can see the relevant bookmark in your cross-reference by pressing Alt+F9 to display the field code. You can then reapply that bookmark by selecting the heading in question, choosing the appropriate bookmark in the Bookmark dialog, and clicking Add.

Answer 2

Stefan - Thanks for the feedback.

The "Hyperlinked Heading" bookmark seems to be a very peculiar bookmark.

Enabling "Show bookmarks" using

File | Options | Word Options dialog | Advanced | Show document content | Show bookmarks

The Hyperlinked Heading bookmark does not appear as brackets i.e. "[" and "]".

In contrast, a bookmark created by selecting text and then using the Bookmark button places "[" and "]" around the text when viewed with "Show bookmarks" enabled.

When you jump to a Hyperlinked Heading bookmark, the cursor appears at the beginning of the Heading. In theory, one should be able to select the paragraph , and cut & paste it elsewhere. Unfortunately, this does not work because the bookmark is not taken into the cut & paste. This appears to be a major bug. Common sense would dictate that the bookmark should also be included in the selection. This would also explain why moving Headings in Outline view causes Hyperlinked Heading bookmarks to no longer point to their moved Heading.

Would you agree that this is a major bug?

Of course, Microsoft no longer accepts Bug Reports for Microsoft Office which tells you everthing you need to know about their product.

I found one workaround for this major bug.

Make sure "Show bookmarks" is enabled so you can see "[" and "]".

Go to the Heading.

Press the End key to go to the end of the heading.

Press the Bookmark button found at

Insert menu tab | Links group | Bookmark button

Type in the name of what you want to call the book mark.

Select the text you want to hyperlink to the Heading.

Press the Bookmark button found at

Insert menu tab | Links group | Hyperlink button | Insert Hyperlink dialog | Bookmark button

At the bottom of the tree panel, you will find the bookmark you created.

Now if you move the Heading using Outline view, the bookmark hyperlinks will still go to the correct Heading.

Caveat - If you create your bookmark are the beginning of the Heading, it will not move when you move heading in Outline view.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 3

The hyperlinked heading may move because of editing (text removed or added around it), which will be perfectly safe.

Moving the hyperlinked heading via cut and paste should also work. Carefully make sure that you include the whole heading or, more specifically, the whole bookmark. Just in case, cut the heading as well as the preceding and following text paragraph.

Answer 4

Thank you for the feedback.

Ugh. Does that mean you have to re-due a bookmark whenever you move its heading?

Having it so fragile makes it almost useless using bookmarks.

Is there a way around this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 5

Hyperlinks to specific locations make use of bookmarks. When you drag and drop a heading, the bookmark remains in the original location, which explains what goes wrong.