Microsoft Word's disappearing navigation pane

jhsachs · Feb 12, 2025

I need the navigation pane for many of the documents I edit. Always. But when I open one, it displays without the navigation pane. Always. Then I must turn it on before I can proceed.

I've tried to figure out what determines whether Word displays the pane. I see three possibilities:

It's a property of a document. If so, a file that is saved with the navigation pane displayed should display it when re-opened. But this doesn't happen.
It's a property of Word. If so, I should be able to turn it on once, and any document I open iafter that will display it. But this doesn't happen either.
It's a Word customization settle. If so, I should be able to find it somewhere in the Options dialog. But I've looked, and I don't see it.

I've also searched for instructions, "How to turn on Microsoft Word navigation pane permanently." All of the matches I find tell me how to turn it on "...after you open the document...," in other words, "permanently" is being ignored.

What is the trick that Microsoft has hidden so well?

antspants · Feb 12, 2025

Hi there, welcome.

Cntrl + F should open it.

And it should stay open if you tick the box, I would of thought?

Use the Navigation pane in Word - Microsoft Support

Use the Navigation pane to go directly to the page or heading you want.

support.microsoft.com

jhsachs · Feb 13, 2025

That never occurred to me: that because Ctrl+F opens a "find" prompt that is in the navigation pane, it opens the navigation pane. It works, but when you press Esc to end the Find operation, the navigation pane goes away again.

I don't have a document that presents this problem to experiment on right now, but if it won't even keep the navigation pane in the window while the document is open, I'm not confident that it will display the pane again when the document is closed and opened again.

I'm not sure what you mean by "tick the box." If you can clarify that, maybe it will solve the whole problem.

antspants · Feb 13, 2025

jhsachs said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "tick the box." If you can clarify that, maybe it will solve the whole problem.

Have a read of the link I posted.

To go to a page or a heading in a Word document without scrolling, use the Navigation pane.

To open the Navigation pane, press Ctrl+F, or select the View tab and choose Navigation Pane.

jhsachs · Feb 14, 2025

Oh -- the check box on the View ribboni for enabling the navigation pane. "Especially" threw me off, because if you do that, there's no reason to press Ctrl+F first.

The navigation box is my customary (and, it increasingly appears, only) way of opening the navigation pane semi-permanently. But in some documents it still disappears when I save, and must be re-displayed when I open again. It's a two-step operation, and each step takes less than a second, but I have to do it over and over and over... How many hours do I spend re-displaying the navigation pane every year? I don't know, but it must round off to an integer greater than zero.

That's with some documents. Others open with the navigation pane displayed. I don't know whether such a document will re-display the navigation pane when I open it if I hid the pane before i saved, since I almost never hide the pane.

So my original question about what determines the initial state of the navigation pane is not yet answered.

dacrone · Feb 14, 2025

easy enough. this macro will apply to the "Normal.dotm" template, thus taking effect on all Word documents. it will remember the last saved state of the Navigation Pane, thus if you close a document with the nav pane open, it will be opened the next time you open a document. if you have it closed, it will be closed next time. follow steps 1-7 here (start with "Word 2010 onwards" under step 1):

.https://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm

name the macro (in step 1):
NavPaneLastState

for the macro code to use, input the following (step 5):

Code:

Sub AutoOpen()
ActiveWindow.DocumentMap = False
End Sub

jhsachs · Feb 15, 2025

Sorry, but that is not what I'm looking for, for several reasons.

The first is that I want to open most documents with the navigation pane, but not all. Adding a macro that makes Word always display the navigation pane when I open a file will just push the problem around, forcing me to close it over and over and over in some documents rather than open it over and over and over in other documents. It will probably reduce the total number of times I have to open/close the pane, but I'm not even sure of that, since the files where I don't want it tend to be short ones, like my "to do" list, that I open most often.

The second reason is that we have a tremendous library of existing documents, and most of our work consists of updating existing documents rather than creating new ones. Every time I was assigned to work on a document that doesn't behave itself, I would have to open a template and copy the macro into the document. That would go on forever.

The third is that my team uses a set of standardized templates for our work. I can't just go and create my own customized versions of them to meet my personal needs. That would make me very unpopular when my boss noticed I had done it.

I return to my original request: an explanation of what rules Word follows when it opens a document and decides whether to display the navigation pane or not. There have got to be rules; that's how computers work. Doesn't anyone know what they are?

dacrone · Feb 15, 2025

1) all that macro does is leave it in the last known state (if opened, it will remain opened, if closed it will remain closed)

2) only options outside of enabling this macro by default via the Normal.dotm template would be to purchase a 3rd party app that will (i guarantee) run the same style of macro, except do so with a GUI.... or.... create a different macro that employs "Ctrl+F" (since Find opens the Nav pane anyways) and add that as a ribbon button.

3) if this is a work environment, i fully assume a 3rd party program/plugin will need vetted and approved prior to just installing and deploying it from the server level (if not on a domain, it will be more tedious work than pushing it out via server level)

4) as for your "rules" inquiry.. its closed by Default. only way to change this is to use a Macro or 3rd party plugin

Now***
.you can use the same macro i posted above and assign it to each document individually OR via \\path\filename.docx per the instructions below:

IF you ask me, i would gather the ones most important to implement this on, annotate their path\filenames and put it all in one macro attached to the Normal.dotm template and thus, it will keep the navigation pane opened on those files. you can always add new path\filenames to that macro when new documents require this

AndreTen · Feb 16, 2025

jhsachs said:
Sorry, but that is not what I'm looking for, for several reasons.

The first is that I want to open most documents with the navigation pane, but not all. Adding a macro that makes Word always display the navigation pane when I open a file will just push the problem around, forcing me to close it over and over and over in some documents rather than open it over and over and over in other documents. It will probably reduce the total number of times I have to open/close the pane, but I'm not even sure of that, since the files where I don't want it tend to be short ones, like my "to do" list, that I open most often.

The second reason is that we have a tremendous library of existing documents, and most of our work consists of updating existing documents rather than creating new ones. Every time I was assigned to work on a document that doesn't behave itself, I would have to open a template and copy the macro into the document. That would go on forever.

The third is that my team uses a set of standardized templates for our work. I can't just go and create my own customized versions of them to meet my personal needs. That would make me very unpopular when my boss noticed I had done it.

eI rturn to my original request: an explanation of what rules Word follows when it opens a document and decides whether to display the navigation pane or not. There have got to be rules; that's how computers work. Doesn't anyone know what they are?

Default rules regarding Navigation pane are simple: Navigation pane opens in the same state as it was in the last document you've closed.

If the state is changing, you may be working on the shared document - someone else opened the document, changed the state and closed it. Or the Office installation may be corrupted. Perform online repair.

jhsachs · Monday at 2:16 PM

Default rules regarding Navigation pane are simple: Navigation pane opens in the same state as it was in the last document you've closed.

No, it doesn't. That's the only reason I started this thread. What kind of evidence do I need to present to prove that?

The documents in question reside in a source control system. The only way to change them is to check them out and then check them back in. While I have them checked out, they are on my local disk and are accessible only to me. If anyone else checked them in there would be a permanent record of it, and there is none.

Later: It occurred to me that some documents might be exhibiting this behavior because they were created from a template with an auto-open macro that turns the navigation pane off. I opened several of the documents I've worked on recently, at least some of which exhibited this behavior when I did, but none of them are doing it now. That confirms my belief that whether a document displays the navigation pane when opened depends on something other or more than whether the pane was open when it was saved. It also implies, but does not prove, that an auto-open macro is not responsible.

The next time the problem occurs I'll investigate the document's macros and try to figure out for certain whether an auto-open macro is responsible. I think the chances of that are pretty small, though.

dacrone · Monday at 2:20 PM

jhsachs said:
No, it doesn't. That's the only reason I started this thread. What kind of evidence do I need to present to prove that?

The documents in question reside in a source control system. The only way to change them is to check them out and then check them back in. While I have them checked out, they are on my local disk and are accessible only to me. If anyone else checked them in there would be a permanent record of it, and there is none.

post #8 is your only set of options. it is closed by default as stated. and based on the environment these documents are in, creating a macro and attaching it to each document individually IS your only option..

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