How to Use Your Word Processor

Using Outline View in Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word allows you to view your document in several ways: print layout, normal view, Web layout, and outline view. Outline view works well only if you’ve used styles in your document. Styles are a collection of formatting commands applied as a group to text in your document. You can format a title, a main heading, lower level headings, body text, and so on, using styles.

If you’ve used styles to format headings in your document, you can use outline view to examine the structure and organization of your document. In outline view, you can hide the text below a certain heading level (such as heading level 3) and look at your major headings. This can give you a better sense of how your document is organized.

To view a Word document in outline view, click on the VIEW > OUTLINE menu command. You can then click on the Outline icon bar to choose the amount of detail you want to view in the document. Chapter 1 of The Bedford Researcher is shown in draft form in outline view below. Note that only headings of level three and higher are shown.