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 cut-and-paste or copy-and-paste operations. You can visually see the bookmarks if you turn the bookmark brackets (Tools | Options | View | Bookmarks), or if you choose Insert | Bookmark and examine the list in the Bookmark dialog box.

Microsoft provides no information in the Knowledge Base as to why these bookmarks are created, but they are a real bother to some people. They 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