Creating a New Outline

Creating a new outline in Word is simple. If you’re just starting a document, simply click the Outline button in the View tools in the lower-right corner of the Word window. Follow these steps to start the new outline.

1. Type the text for your heading. The heading is automatically formatted in the Heading 1 style.

2. Press Enter. The insertion point moves to the next line in the outline.

3. To create a sublevel, click Demote on the Outlining tab or press Tab. Word indents the insertion point and changes the first outline symbol (−) to a plus (+) symbol, indicating that the heading now has a subordinate entry. Type the text for that entry.

4. Press Enter to move to the next line in your outline. By default, Word creates the next heading at the same level as the heading you last entered. If you want to create another sublevel, click Demote or press Tab.

5. To raise an entry one heading level, click the Promote button or press Shift+Tab. If you want to move all the way out to the left margin and create a Heading 1 outline level when you have created multiple sublevels, click the Promote To Heading 1 button.

6. Continue typing entries until your outline is completed. Figure 9–4 shows a sample outline with multiple outline levels.

   
   Figure 9–4: Outlining is a simple matter of identifying key topics in your document naming them, and ordering them the way you want.

It’s true that you must have your headings formatted in the styles Word will recognize-Heading 1, Heading 2, or Heading 3-for them to act and appear properly in the Outline window, but you can create styles you like for those headings. You can use the Styles gallery to change the formatting choices for those styles and save the changes in the current document. You can also have Word automatically make the changes to all similar heading styles in your document.

Note 

In some instances, you might want to use the Tab key not to demote a heading level in your outline but to actually insert a Tab character between words. When you want to insert an actual tab in your outline, press Ctrl+Tab instead of simply pressing the Tab key.