Hi
I have created hyperlinks to headings within a word document.

Works great until I edit the heading eg move down a few lines or enter a page break (ctrl + return).

After edit and using the hyperlink it jumps to a blank space (where the heading used to be). On editing the hyperlink to see why the heading (hyperlink location) is now prefixed with a # eg #Heading Name.

This involves a lot of work to fix up hyperlinks after any edit.

How do I stop this happening?



Thanks
Alan

When you need space before a heading, modify the paragraph formatting to add space before. Do not press the Enter key at the beginning.

If you need to add text before the heading, do this at the end of the line before rather than at the beginning of the heading.

The thing is, what happens when you add a cross-reference to a heading (or it gets to be part of a Table of Contents) a hidden bookmark is created. When you press the Enter key or otherwise type at the beginning of your heading, the bookmark stretches to include what you have added instead of putting the additional material before the bookmark. The reference is actually to the bookmark, not to the heading.


Insert Cross-References

Charles
Thanks for your reply.

I have tried what you suggest and it works good.

Easy enough when creating space / adding lines before a heading.
It's a bit more tricky when you want to add a page break at the heading, normally I would click at start of the heading hit CTL Enter (ensuring the heading is at start of new page, No line spaces above). Now with your suggestion I create the page break by clicking on the line above the heading. This puts it on new page with a line space before heading. I can then delete that line (to get the heading at top of page) and the hyperlink works.

I figured that the link to the heading was similar / same as a bookmark, and did not follow the edit the Same as a table of contents link.

Shame it doesn't as that works well.


Thanks again.

Even better, change the paragraph formatting for your heading to have the attribute of Page Break before rather than using a manual page break. If you want this for most of your headings, modify the style to have this attribute.

Manual page breaks used to really make documents harder to edit. They are better now but still usually not needed.

Thanks for extra info, I will also use that 👍.

I am creating an procedure manual for a process. There is a few "what if" scenarios so planning to use the hyperlinks to branch off to other sections of the document.

I will use ctrl + left arrow to go "back" and added "back" and "forward" command buttons to "quick start menu".

These work good, although I was thinking it would be better to somehow embed in the document to make it easier to navigate for other users, and when I turn the doc into a pdf.


Any other tips would be appreciated.

Use the built-in heading styles. Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly They help with building your Table of Contents and also translate automatically to pdf bookmarks. In Word, they show up in the Navigation Pane.

Good info, Thanks