James Marshall is a pro journalist who covers technology and computer troubleshooting. He is also skilled with Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, and other word processors.
Updated on January 14, 2021 Reviewed byLisa Mildon is a Lifewire writer and an IT professional with 30 years of experience. Her writing has appeared in Geekisphere and other publications.
Add tags, or keywords, to Microsoft Word documents to make documents easier to find. By default, when you save a Word document, there are no tags saved along with it, but you can add your own before or after you make the document.
Instructions in this article apply to Word 365, Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010.
Tags are useful when you have several related documents in a single folder or on a flash drive, for example, and each document has a non-descriptive or nearly identical file name like project.docx, otherproject.docx, and otherproject1.docx. To quickly find related files in a folder, categorize each file by applying a tag. Then, search the folder for a specific tag to find documents with that tag.
Here's how to add tags to a Microsoft Word document:
Word might recommend tags as you type. Select an autosuggestion, if one matches your needs, and use your custom tags.
You can add tags to a Word document even if you don't have the app installed. Here's how:
Right-click the file and choose Properties.
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Go to the Details tab.
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In the Tags text box, enter the keywords.
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Select OK to save the tags and close the dialog box.
Once you've added tags, edit or remove tags using the method described above. You can also choose to remove all tags from a Word file using the following steps:
Right-click the file, then choose Properties.
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Go to the Details tab.
Select Remove Properties and Personal Information.
Select Remove the following properties from this file.
Select the Tags check box.
Select OK to save the changes and close the dialog box.