If you open a Microsoft Word document you will notice that it will always open with the first page of the document being displayed. That’s fine under most circumstances but could be problematic for users who work with large documents if they cannot remember exactly where they left off at the last time. Microsoft Excel on the other hand remembers the cell that has been last edited by the user for every sheet of the Excel document.
Here is a tip on how to get the same result in Microsoft Word. The easiest way to make Word jump to the last cursor position in Microsoft Word documents is to use the keyboard shortcut [Shift F5].
Pressing [Shift F5] in a recently launched Word document will place the cursor at the position of the last change in the document. Word will only record changes to the document this way. Simply placing the Word cursor in the Word document is not enough to make [Shift F5] jump to that position.
The other requirement is that the document needs to be saved in doc format. Word cannot perform the jump to the last cursor position if a txt or rtf document is loaded into the text editor. This little keyboard shortcut can be very useful in large Word documents that are edited over time.
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Hey, that’s real helpful! Thanks.
Hi,
Is there any way to do the same in Google docs as well? I have a long excel sheet in G docs and every time I open it I have to scroll down a lot. Any suggestions? Thanks!
B.
Thanks a lot Martin! Very useful information. It is the problem which annoys me for ages). Since now never more! Sorry for my english
You are welcome, sometimes those little tricks can make a huge difference.
Excellent tip. It’s going to save me so much time.
Thanks so much. I have a 236-page file (of Mac tips), and now I’ll use Shift-F5 to to jump where I last edited the file.
Sorry, can’t get this to work in Word 2007. Even tried opening the document, Shift + F5, nothing…. scrolled to last edit, typed more, closed, reopened, Shift + F5, still nothing…
True.
It does not work in Word 2007.
I sent a formal question to Microsoft Support Team on their website, waiting for the reply.
No serious reply from Microsoft (they advise using Review Mode instead, and they did not give me any settings for automatic placement of the cursor at the last change after opening of the document……)
I guess the only option is using older versions of Word (but certain CATs “don’t like” them), or trying to fix the macro, here are some tips I found:
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/apperrors/gobackfix.htm
http://www.brainbell.com/tutorials/ms-office/Word/Return_To_The_Last_Editing_Position_When_Opening_A_Document.htm
It’s a shame that Microsoft didn’t learn from Open Office. that’s automatically opens your document to the last placed you typed.
I’m having the same problem… It does not work in 2007, and I’m so tempted to go back to Open Office. The problem is, I send large documents, and most people do not use Open Office and can’t open them.
It’s a simple thing, I can’t understand why Microsoft didn’t include it. It’s so frustrating………..
Sorry about first posting … Hope it makes sense. I should have read it through before pressing Submit Comment button.