A Word document can be as long as it needs to be. You can make it easier to navigate with a proper, auto-generated table of contents. The sections or headings in a table of contents hyperlinked to the page they appear on making it easy to jump to the section.
The table of contents can show as many heading levels as you need it to but it’s still not going to take you to an exact page of your choosing. To jump to a page in a document, you have to use a different tool.
Go to page in Word
Microsoft 365 Word has a built-in tool for jumping directly to a page or jumping to a page relative to the one you’re currently on i.e., jump one or two pages forward, or back.
Go to page in Word
To go to a particular page in Microsoft 365 Word, follow the steps below.
- Open the Word document.
- On the Home ribbon, click the Replace button or tap the F5 key.
- Go to the ‘Go to’ tab.
- Select ‘Page’ in the Go to what field.
- Enter a page number, and tap the Enter key.
- The document will jump to the page.
Go to page in Word – Relative page number
If you want to go to a page in Word, relative to the current page i.e., jump ten pages forward or four pages back, the process is almost the same as jumping to a particular page number.
- Open the Word document.
- On the Home tab, click the Replace button or tap the F5 key.
- Go to the ‘Go to’ tab.
- Select ‘Page’ in the ‘Go to what’ column.
- In the ‘Enter page number’ field, enter +1 to jump one page ahead.
- In the ‘Enter page number’ field, enter -1 to jump one page back.
- You can replace the number with the number of pages you want to jump ahead or back by.
Conclusion
The jump to a page is a handy tool in any word processor. Even apps that can only be used to read documents e.g. PDF readers have a jump to page feature. Headings are often not enough to navigate a large document. A heading can’t be added to every single page of a document but every page has a number. More importantly, page numbers are automatic. You don’t have to add them like you have to with headings. They’re less descriptive than a heading but they’re always there.
