If you frequently work with either long documents or master documents, outline view in Word can help you get your work done faster. Outline view is a customized document view that allows you to see only the "skeleton" - or outline - of your document. And you can see the outline view features with just a single click.

Assign outline levels

For outline view to best display your document, each paragraph in your document must have an outline level assigned to it.

Word built-in styles  If you used built-in styles in your document, you are ready to use outline view. With built-in styles, Word has already defined the outline levels in the style. For example, Word defines the style "Heading 1" as Level 1, the style "Heading 2" as Level 2, and the style "Normal" as Body Text.

Styles you created  If you created your own style names and definitions for headings and text, all you have to do is modify the existing style definitions to include the appropriate outline levels. For example, if you created a style called "HeadA", you need to define it as Level 1; define "HeadB" as Level 2 and "Text" as Body Text.

Manually formatted paragraphs and headings  If you used manually formatted paragraphs and headings, you can still take advantage of outline view. Simply assign outline levels to each individual paragraph directly by clicking the appropriate outline level in the Paragraph dialog box. In most cases, you will only need to assign outline levels to your headings, since Word automatically assigns the Body Text outline level to the "Normal" and "Body Text" built-in styles.

Use the outlining toolbar buttons

The Outlining toolbar appears when you switch to outline view. It contains special buttons that help you work in outline view.

Display only the headings you want

When you are reviewing a new document, it is helpful to see the organization of the headings. With outline view, you can even choose which heading levels you want to display. For example, if you want to display only the top two outline levels (the main heading and first-level subheading), click the "2" button on the Outlining toolbar.

Change how your text is displayed

Often writers and editors need to scan a document quickly. You can do this easily in outline view. For example, you can display only the headings and first line of every paragraph by clicking the Show First Line Only button on the Outlining toolbar.

If you want to view more of the outline on your screen, you can even display your outline without formatting. Since the Show Formatting button on the Outlining toolbar is selected already, all you have to do is click the Show Formatting button to turn off this feature. This does not affect the formatting of your document in any way; it simply displays all the text in outline view as Normal style.

Print your outline

Printing an outline is easy; you do not have to manually create a separate outline for your document. In outline view, Word prints the document as you have it displayed on your screen. For example, if you have headings through level 3 displayed, the first line of each paragraph displayed, and show formatting disabled, that is what appears in the printed document.