Placemarkers - Jaws V15 - Word 2007

Using a JAWS Placemarker in MS Word 2007

Most JAWS users are aware of placemarkers, the ability to bookmark elements in a web page where you can easily create your own page mapping strategies to deal with websites old and new.

However, what is less well known is that this placemarker functionality also extends into common Office programs such as Word and Excel. In this post I want to focus in on using a placemarker in MS Word specifically and walk through how neat this feature can be, not only to relocate to a known area in the document, but to assist in making selecting text a lot less hassle.

Before I do that, first a few words in general about JAWS placemarkers. There are two types, temporary and permanent, with placemarkers of the permanent type being stored across JAWS personal settings files so they can be accessed time and time again. A temporary placemarker on the other hand is just that, suitable to be used for the current session, but one that isn't going to survive a reboot. (Note that the placemarker you are about to create here in MS Word is of the permanent variety.)

If you haven't played with placemarkers much you can think of them as a kind of JAWS highlighting pen - a quick way of noting areas of interest in certain types of file and giving you an easy route back to those marked areas. Placemarkers are effectively bookmarks although don't get them mixed up with the formal bookmarks you can create in programs such as MS Word and Internet Explorer.

What might you use a placemarker for? In MS Word, you can pop a placemarker in some text that you simply want to return to and read later. In Excel, you can stick a placemarker on a cell that you similarly need to return to, perhaps after working elsewhere on some formulae that may have some effect on the value in that specific cell. In a web page, which is the more commonly known area, you can stick some placemarkers on a page to help you create your own "mapping" system, pointing to the elements in the page you want to use or access quickly.

Right, that's enough of an introduction, let's focus in on MS Word and see what the wonderful world of placemarkers offers us there.

Setting and Moving to JAWS Placemarkers in MS Word 2007

In MS Word you can assign a placemarker to anything in the document providing that JAWS understands it in the first place. Bear in mind that while this is a permanent placemarker you are only able to assign one per document - a situation unlike using placemarkers online, where you can have several placemarkers for the same page. But this isn't as much of a drawback as you might think because, if you need to relocate the placemarker position in MS Word, you simply move it to where it needs to be. Okay, let's try it out:

1. Open an existing document in MS Word. (Note that if you are creating a new test document you will need to save it before the placemarker feature can be used and stored.)
2. Navigate to a line of text or some other object in the document such as a list or a table.
3. Press CONTROL, WINDOWS KEY and letter K. If you have pressed the keys correctly, JAWS will announce "marking place."
4. Now, to move to the placemarker, press CONTROL HOME or CONTROL END to move focus to the very beginning or very end of the current document. Alternatively, move the cursor away from the placemarker using the ARROW keys.
5. Press ALT, WINDOWS KEY and letter K to now move the cursor to the placemarker you have just set.
6. To move or recycle the placemarker itself, refocus on the new area or item in the document you need to focus on and press CONTROL, WINDOWS KEY and letter K again.

Note: If you mark a place that has already been marked, JAWS will indicate this by saying "place already marked."

Now here is another nifty little trick you can try out. Did you know that you can set a placemarker in the Word document and then use that as a kind of anchor to select text to or from that mark? Let's try it out:

Using a Word Placemarker as a Copy and Paste Mark

1. Make sure your placemarker is focused somewhere appropriate, perhaps next to a word in a paragraph for example.
2. Now move elsewhere in the document as you did in the previous steps. If you move to a location before the placemarker then be aware that you will be copying to your placemarker. If you move to a location after the placemarker then you will be copying from the bookmarked location.
3. Press INSERT SPACEBAR (you will hear a clicking sound) then press letter M. Note that this is a JAWS layered keystroke so you press INSERT SPACEBAR first then let go of these keys before tapping letter M.
4. If you have used the layered keystroke correctly, JAWS will echo that it has "selected between marked place and current position."
5. Now you can choose to copy and/or cut the highlighted text. Alternatively, you can repeat the selection using INSERT SHIFT DOWN ARROW and, if you use this keystroke twice quickly, JAWS will spell the selection.

Practice this operation a few times until it becomes more instinctive. It might save you the hassle of using the dreaded SHIFT key in all your future edit operations!

Placemarkers are really handy and I'll be revisiting some of their other uses in a future post. Have fun!