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Bookmarks and cross-references in Word: the bookmark names and earlier wording a document can keep

Last updated: 28 October 2026

This page is about bookmarks and the fields that refer to them. Links to web pages and files are in hyperlink addresses in Word and PowerPoint; the bookmarks of legacy form fields are in forms with content controls; fields that pull in another file, such as INCLUDETEXT, are in custom XML and embedded objects; and the fields left by a mail merge are in mail merge letters.

What a bookmark keeps

Microsoft's page Add or delete bookmarks in a Word document or Outlook message says: "A bookmark in Word marks a place that you want to find again easily." You give it a name under Insert › Bookmark, and "Bookmark names need to begin with a letter. They can include both numbers and letters, but not spaces." A name is whatever the person typed, so it is often a short description: a client, a clause that is still being negotiated, or a note to come back to a passage.

The name is not on the page. Microsoft's page Troubleshoot bookmarks says that, by default, Word does not display bookmarks, and that with File › Options › Advanced › Show bookmarks turned on a bookmark appears only as brackets or an I-beam. The names are listed in the Bookmark box. In the file, each bookmark is a pair of markers in the text, and the standard quoted in Microsoft's Open XML documentation gives the example <w:bookmarkStart w:id="0" w:name="testing123"/> for "the start of a bookmark within a WordprocessingML document" (bookmarkStart, ISO/IEC 29500-1, 1st edition).

Bookmarks travel with the text they mark. The Troubleshoot bookmarks page says: "If you copy an entire marked item to another document both documents contain identical items with identical bookmarks." A clause reused from a contract for another client, or a section taken from an earlier proposal, can bring that document's bookmark names into yours. The same page says that if you store text that contains a bookmark as an AutoText entry, "Word stores the bookmark with the entry", so a reused building block can bring one too.

Hidden bookmarks and cross-references

Word makes bookmarks of its own. Microsoft's page Create a cross-reference says: "Word uses a hidden bookmark to track an item that has a cross-reference." Microsoft's article Cross-reference links do not update to the correct heading number adds that the bookmark name for a cross-reference begins with _Ref, and that to see these in the Bookmark box you select its Hidden bookmarks check box. Microsoft's page Field codes: Ref field names one more kind: when you paste text copied from the same document with Paste Special, Word "inserts a Ref field with the bookmark INTER_LINK n, where n is incremented automatically".

Hidden bookmarks are named by Word, not by a person, so they say little on their own. What matters is the cross-reference that points at them. The Ref field page says: "The Cross-reference command ( Insert tab, Links group) inserts Ref fields to create cross-references", and the Create a cross-reference page shows what one looks like with its code showing: {REF _Ref249586 \* MERGEFORMAT}.

A cross-reference keeps the text it last showed

A field has two parts: its code, and its result, the text you see. The Ref field page says: "Field results are what’s shown in the document after having evaluated the field code." In the file, the standard quoted in Microsoft's Open XML documentation describes a field whose code is followed by a separator and then "its current result within the document" (fldChar). The result is saved text, and it changes only when the field is updated.

Microsoft's page Update fields says: "Sometimes you need to manually trigger an update of the information in fields like those used in a table of contents, headers and footers, cross-references, bookmarks, and formulas in tables." The Troubleshoot bookmarks page puts it the other way round: "If a cross-reference doesn't reflect changes you make in the bookmark it refers to, update the field." So a cross-reference that showed a heading or a clause can still show its earlier wording after the heading itself was changed: a heading that named a client, a figure that was taken out, or the title of a section that was deleted.

A cross-reference whose bookmark is gone says so when it is updated. The Troubleshoot bookmarks page: Word displays "Error! Bookmark Not Defined." or "Error! Reference source not found." "when you update a field that has a broken link to a bookmark". Text like this in a document usually tells the reader that something it pointed to was taken out.

Updating can also show more than you meant. The Create a cross-reference page warns that if you press Enter at the beginning of a referenced numbered item, "the bookmark can expand to include the new item. As a result, the cross-reference might display or link to more content than intended after fields are updated." Read the cross-references after you update them, not only before.

Where each one is in the file

Check the bookmarks and cross-references in Word

1. Work on a copy. Select Insert › Bookmark, select the Hidden bookmarks check box, and read every name; the box sorts them by Name or by Location. Delete a name that should not go out: the Add or delete bookmarks page says "Choose the name of the bookmark you want to delete, and then select Delete." It gives a separate way to delete the marked text with the bookmark, so Delete in the box is for the bookmark alone.
2. If a link went to a bookmark you deleted, the same page says to "right-click the linked text and then select Remove Hyperlink".
3. Press Alt+F9 to see field codes in place of their results, as the Ref field page describes, and look for REF and for bookmark names: the page gives the syntax as { [ REF ] Bookmark [ Switches ] }, so a field can name a bookmark without the word REF. Press Alt+F9 again to go back.
4. Update the fields, as the Update fields page describes: press Ctrl+A, then F9. The page adds: "If your document has tables with fields or formulas, you might need to select each table separately and press F9." Fields can also be in headers, footers, footnotes and text boxes; click into each of those and update its fields there too.
5. Read each cross-reference after the update, for earlier wording, for "Error! Reference source not found." and for one that now shows more than it should.
6. If the document does not need working cross-references, turn them into plain text. The Troubleshoot bookmarks page says: "You can press Ctrl+Shift+F9 to convert the text in the field to regular text." Microsoft's list of keyboard shortcuts in Word gives these keys as "Unlink a field". Use them on a copy, select only the fields you mean to change, and look at what changed.
7. If you save the document as a PDF, Microsoft's page Save or convert to PDF or XPS in Office desktop apps describes an option to "create a set of bookmarks in the PDF file" from Headings or from Word Bookmarks. The page does not say what each PDF bookmark is called; if you choose Word Bookmarks, look at the PDF's bookmarks before you send it. What else a PDF can carry is in metadata when exporting to PDF.

Check a copy of the file

1. Make a copy, rename it to .zip and unzip it.
2. In word/document.xml, and in each header, footer, footnotes, endnotes and comments part in word/, search for w:bookmarkStart and read each w:name.
3. Search the same parts for REF, and for each bookmark name you found, to find the fields that point at bookmarks. The saved result is the text between the field's separate and end markers, or, in a w:fldSimple, the text inside it.
4. Search for w:anchor to find links to bookmarks.
5. Finding nothing this way shows only that these searches found nothing, not that the file holds nothing else.

What ScrubDrop does

ScrubDrop reads the file in your browser; it is not uploaded. It treats bookmarks and cross-references as part of how the document works: in both versions they are kept and are not listed, Word's hidden bookmarks included, and the saved text of a cross-reference stays as it was. Read the names and the saved text yourself, as above. For free, one file at a time, it lists the kinds of hidden data it supports and removes the document properties and comments, and accepts tracked changes.

When ScrubDrop removes content that a bookmark marks, such as hidden text in ScrubDrop Pro, the bookmark's two markers usually stay with its name, empty; if a marker is itself inside the removed content, the bookmark goes with it. If a cross-reference or a link points at a bookmark inside content being removed from the body, a header, a footer or a note, ScrubDrop writes no file. Where the field is in the same part as the bookmark, it says "A link or field in this document points at a bookmark inside content being removed. Change the link or field in Word first, or untick the category that removes that content." Where it is elsewhere, in a footer for example, the re-check reports the broken reference instead. In the free version this happens, for example, when the bookmark is inside a tracked deletion that accepting would remove. A bookmark inside a comment goes with the comments, and a cross-reference to it is left pointing at nothing, so check cross-references to comments before you send the file. The result is read again with separate parsers, and a file that does not pass is not offered.

Questions

Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 28 October 2026. ScrubDrop is not affiliated with Microsoft.