Viewing a Document in Outline View

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Whether you're just starting a document from scratch or you're working with an existing one, with text and headings already entered and formatted, you can use outlines to your benefit. To display Outline view, click the Outline View button to the left of the horizontal scroll bar.

Tip

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You can also change to Outline view by pressing Ctrl+Alt+O or by choosing View, Outline.

If you've entered headings in your document and formatted them with one of Word's heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3), they'll appear as headings in Outline view (see Figure 11-2). The basic text styles applied to your document will be reflected in the outline, but all paragraph formatting (indents, before and after spacing, and line spacing) is suppressed. When you return to Print Layout or Web Page Layout view, the paragraph formatting will be intact.

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Troubleshooting

Headings Don't Show Up in Outline View

When you switch to Outline view, why don't any of your headings appear as you expected? If you didn't use the built-in heading styles Word offers—Heading 1, Heading 2, or Heading 3—Word won't automatically recognize the headings as outline levels you want to use. To correct the problem, click the headings one by one, click the Outline Level down arrow on the Outlining toolbar, and choose the heading level you want from the list. If you want to do it all at once, select all your headings, choose Outline Level 1, and then use Demote as needed to reduce headings to Level 2 and Level 3.

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Several different types of symbols appear in Outline view, as shown in Table 11-1. They provide clues as to what action to take while working in an outline.

Figure 11-2. Outline view makes use of the headings you've formatted in your document. Paragraph text also appears by default when you first display the outline.

Table 11-1. Outline Symbols

Symbol	Name	Description
	Expand button	If double-clicked, alternately displays and hides subordinate headings and text paragraphs
	Collapse button	Indicates that there are no subordinate headings or text paragraphs
	Underlined heading	Shows that the topic includes body text
	Topic marker	Symbol applied to lowest-level outline entry, formatted as body text

Exploring the Outlining Toolbar

When you display your document in Outline view, the Outlining toolbar appears automatically. Like other Word toolbars, the Outlining toolbar is dockable, which means you can move it to any place on screen you think is convenient. Figure 11-3 shows the work space with the Outlining toolbar in the document area as a floating toolbar. Table 11-2, lists and describes the various tools on the Outlining toolbar.

Figure 11-3. The Outlining toolbar can be docked along the edges of your document window or pulled anywhere on the screen as a floating toolbar.

Note

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When you display the Outlining toolbar by choosing View, Toolbars and selecting Outlining, only the tools shown in Table 11-2 are displayed. When you change to Outline view, the Outlining toolbar and the Master Document tools appear in the same button row.

Tip - Explore new tools on the Outlining toolbar

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In Word 2002, you can choose the outline level right from the Outlining toolbar by clicking the Outline Level down arrow and choosing the level you want from the displayed list. You can also update the table of contents (TOC) from Outline view and go directly to the TOC while you work.

Table 11-2. Outlining Tools

Tool	Name	Description
	Promote To Heading 1	Raises the outline level of the selection to the highest outline level, Heading 1
	Promote	Raises the outline level of the selection by one level
	Outline Level	Enables you to view and change the outline level of the selection
	Demote	Lowers the selection by one outline level
	Demote To Body Text	Lowers the selection to the lowest outline level, body text
	Move Up	Moves the selection up one level in the outline
	Move Down	Moves the selection down one level in the outline
	Expand	Expands the outline heading to show subheadings and text
	Collapse	Reduces selection to top-level headings, hiding subordinate headings and text
	Show Level	Displays a list of heading levels; select the level to which you want the outline displayed
	Show First Line Only	Reduces text entries to show a single line; good for reviewing paragraph topics
	Show Formatting	Alternately hides and displays the character formatting shown in Outline view
	Update TOC	Automatically updates a table of contents you've generated for the current document
	Go To TOC	Moves the display to the table of contents (usually positioned at the end of the document)