Big documents, like book manuscripts, can get cumbersome. Once you put several thousand words on the page, keeping track of everything and navigating between sections can get tough. So here are some tools to use to save yourself some time and scrolling as you move about your document.
The Navigation Pane
The Navigation Pane appears on the left side of a Microsoft Word window that pops up when you use CTRL+F or when you check Navigation Pane under Show on the View Tab. And as the name suggests, it’s meant to help you navigate your document.
The Navigation Pane gives you the option to view and quickly navigate headings, pages, or search results with just a click or two. Much faster than scrolling through your document!
Headings
You have to populate the Navigation Pane before you can use it to jump around your manuscript. To do so, you need to use the paragraph styles for headings.
To apply a heading style:
- Select the text you want to apply the style to
- Click on the heading style in the Style gallery
- Check that the selected text now appears in the Navigation Pane
The lower the heading level, the more it will be indented in the Navigation Pane, allowing you to easily see the hierarchy of your sections. This can act as a mini outline of your manuscript.
You can also click on the arrow on the left side of your higher-level headings to collapse all the headings below it to simplify the view (like subfolders inside folders).
Once you have a populated Headings tab, you can click on any of the text there and Word will take you straight to that part of the document.
In technical, academic, or educational materials, it’s common to have different heading levels. With fiction, you’re probably only going to have chapter titles or numbers.
Tip: Use Temporary Headings
If your final manuscript won’t use different heading levels, you can still use temporary headings to break up your manuscript while drafting and revisions. I like marking scenes with decimals, so I can quickly reference scenes in editorial letters. For example, Chapter 1, Scene 1 would be 1.1, while Chapter 5, Scene 4 would be 5.4. But if you want the Navigation Pane to give you a quick reminder of what happens in a chapter or scene, you can use a longer descriptive heading like 2 – Introduction of love interest.
To make sure you remember to delete these temporary titles, you can use Track Changes or mark them with an easily searchable punctuation or symbol (that won’t appear anywhere else in you manuscript), like square brackets or a string of asterisks.
Search
You’re probably already familiar with using Ctrl+F to locate words or phrases in you manuscript or view all appearances of the searched for word or phrase in the Navigation Pane, but searching is also a quick way to get around you manuscript.
Searching Chapter might allow you to move between chapters, while searching a character’s name can move you between all the scenes that character appears in.
Tip: Leave Easily Searchable Characters
If you know you’re going to have to return to a section of your manuscript later, it can be helpful to leave a temporary marker that includes easily searchable characters. By this I mean characters or strings of characters that won’t appear elsewhere in your manuscript. Marking something with A won’t be helpful, because the letter A appears everywhere. But using TK (a letter combo that doesn’t appear very often in English), square brackets, or a string of asterisks is much more likely to only turn up those temporary markers.
For example, if you’re trying to find the location where you described your protagonist’s love interest the first time, searching the love interest’s name might produce too many results. But if you leave a temporary marker like [love interest’s physical description] or ***Love interest first appearance*** you’ll be able to search for square brackets or asterisk strings and find it easier.
This is also a good trick for when you’re drafting and want to skip over writing a scene and come back to it at your leisure.
Tip: Use Wildcards
If you’re not sure the exact phrase or spelling of the thing you’re trying to find, wildcards can help. Wildcards are special characters that act as placeholders for unknown characters. They can help you find items that are similar but not identical. For example, you can use wildcards to search for two different spellings of the same name if you changed how to spell a character’s name halfway through your manuscript.
Keyboard Shortcuts
In general, the less you have to scroll or use your mouse, the faster you’ll work. Knowing shortcuts will help keep your hands on the keyboard.
help keep your hands on the keyboard.
| Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+left/right arrow | Move cursor left or right by one word |
| Ctrl+up/down arrow | Move cursor up or down by one paragraph |
| Home | Move cursor to beginning of line |
| End | Mover cursor to end of line |
| Ctrl+Home | Move cursor to beginning of document |
| Ctrl+End | Move cursor to end of document |
| Page Up | Move cursor by scrolling up one screen view |
| Page Down | Move cursor by scrolling down one screen view |
| Ctrl+Page Up | Move cursor to top of previous page |
| Ctrl+Page Down | Move cursor to top of next page |
| Ctrl+Alt+Page Up | Move cursor to the top of the screen |
| Ctrl+Alt+Page Down | Move the cursor to the bottom of the screen |
| Shift+F5 | Move the cursor to location of last change |
| Ctrl+Alt+Z | Cycle the cursor between the four previous changes |
| Ctrl+F | Display the Navigation pane and search |
| Ctrl+G | Display the Go To dialogue box |
Tip: Try Macros
If Microsoft Word doesn’t have the shortcut you need, you can make your own with macros.
If you’re not a coder, Paul Beverly has some great navigation Macros. I use InstantFindUp and InstantFindDown, which take you to the previous or next instance of the selected word, all the time!
Check out all the Macros listed under “18. Speed navigating around the text” in Paul Beverly’s Macro Menu.
