Random OLE Bookmarks

Cheryl asked why Word sometimes inserts random OLE bookmarks into a document. These bookmarks are sequentially numbered and follow the naming pattern OLE_LINK##.

It appears that these bookmarks are created automatically by Word during some (but not all) cut-and-paste or copy-and-paste operations. You can visually see the bookmarks if you follow these steps:

1. Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 and later versions display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
2. Display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.
3. Click Advanced and scroll down to Show Document Content. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Show Document Content group of the Advanced options of the Word Options dialog box.

4. Make sure the Show Bookmarks check box is selected.

Or you can examine the list of bookmarks in the Bookmark dialog box if you choose Insert | Bookmark (Word 2007 or Word 2010) or Insert | Links | Bookmark (Word 2013 and later versions).

Microsoft provides no information in the Knowledge Base as to why these bookmarks are created, but they are a real bother to some people. The bookmarks serve no purpose that I can find, and they can be safely deleted. If you want an automatic way to delete them, you can use a macro:

Sub RemoveOLE_Marks()
    Dim J As Integer
    For J = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Count To 1 Step -1
        If UCase(Left(ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(J).Name, 8)) = "OLE_LINK" Then
            ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(J).Delete
        End If
    Next J
End Sub

Running the macro won't bother any other bookmarks in your system. The only ones affected are those that start with the letters OLE_LINK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10475) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Random OLE Bookmarks.