What's a Bookmark in Writer?

GrumpyGeezer925 · February 24, 2026, 5:35pm

Writer 24.2 in Mint 22.3.
I have just found a mystery, and since my Help module refuses to work, I must ask the question here. I noticed a greyed out left bracket “[” within my text, which I had not placed there. It was in the word “T[herefore”. I clicked on it and saw that the Navigator category of “Bookmarks” came up, with one of many, many Bookmarks being highlighted. Clicking on that gave me the option to stop tracking Bookmarks. Out of curiosity, I unticked that, and the highlighting disappeared, though the Bookmarks remained, and there seems to be no way to re-track the things. Not even from the “View” menu.

What is that? What is it for? What places them, and how can I re-highlight them? That would at least help to find them, rather than the trial and error method I must now use.

ajlittoz · February 24, 2026, 6:03pm

A bookmark is just a location in your document. It is intended for quick navigation between several parts. All bookmarks are reported in the Navigator, section Bookmarks.

In principle, bookmark creation is under author’s responsibility.

However, if your document comes from the alien world (e.g. a DOCX), some constructs in these formats can automatically create bookmarks.

Note that bookmarks and cross-references are basically the same. The difference is semantic: bookmarks should be used to navigate inside your document while cross-references allow to insert various properties/attributes of the target location at the point of reference. You can use one for the other but it is preferable to make the distinction between navigation and reference.