Troubleshoot outline view

The document is not formatted with built-in heading styles. Place the cursor in a heading and select an outline level in the Outline Level box on the Outlining toolbar. For example, click Level 1 in the Outline Level box to format a title as a Level 1 heading.

• Show All Levels is the equivalent of the Show All Headings button in earlier versions of Microsoft Word. Click the arrow in the Show Level box on the Outlining toolbar to see Show All Levels.

• Show Level options are the equivalent of the Show Heading buttons in earlier versions of Word. Click the arrow in the Show Level box on the Outlining toolbar to see the different levels of heading that can be displayed.

If you're already in outline view and the toolbar is not displayed, point to Toolbars on the View menu, and then click Outlining.

In outline view, Microsoft Word indents text to reflect the various heading levels in a document. When you switch to another view, Word removes the indentations.

In outline view, if you select and copy headings that include collapsed subordinate text, the collapsed text is also copied. You cannot copy only the visible headings.

You can, however, quickly list the headings in a table of contents and omit the page numbers. After creating the table of contents, select it and press CTRL+SHIFT+F9 to convert the table of contents to regular text. You can then copy the headings from the table of contents.

In outline view, paragraph formatting doesn't appear, and the paragraph formatting commands are not available. To view or modify paragraph formatting, switch to another view.

If you print a document from outline view, any manual page breaks that show on the screen are reflected in the printed document. To temporarily remove page breaks, save the document, and then delete the page breaks. After printing, close the document without saving the changes.

• If the document is formatted with built-in heading styles you can print just the headings. Use the buttons on the Outlining toolbar to display only what you want to print.

• If you've formatted headings with styles other than the built-in heading styles (Heading 1 through Heading 9) or outline levels (Level 1 through Level 9), you can print the headings as a table of contents and omit the page numbers. You will need to specify the styles you used to format the headings.

• If you aren't using built-in heading styles, you can impose a hierarchical structure on your document by assigning outline levels to your paragraphs. The built-in heading styles apply specific formatting, while the outline levels apply an "invisible" format. Switch to print layout view, and select a paragraph you want to assign an outline level to. On the Format menu, click Paragraph, and then click the Indents and Spacing tab. In the Outline level box, click the level you want.

• You can also use buttons on the Outlining toolbar to apply outline levels.

• Press CTRL+TAB.