[macropod]

But the bookmarks Word creates are always "hidden" and don't show the
brackets.

Not necessarily.

For some strange reason Word sometimes creates bookmarks with names like
'OLE_LINK1' etc, when text is merely copied & pasted. It also does this by
design if text is copied and pasted as a link. These bookmarks show up in
the normal way.

If Word has created any 'OLE_LINK' bookmarks that shouldn't be there,
deleting them won't do any harm.

Cheers
--
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]