Anatomy of Word: Use the Outline View to build complete and persuasive documents
Body text can go under any heading level
Of course, the purpose of your outline is to provide the framework for your document which, ultimately, will include a lot of text supporting each heading. I'm not going to go through and explain how to add text to each and every heading, but will add some text to one of the headings to provide you with an example. To add body text to a particular heading (at any level), insert a new line after the desired heading and click the Demote to Body Text button (double right arrow) and type your text, as shown above.
Notice that the addition of headings and body text has changed the minus signs at those levels to plus signs. This indicates that there is content beneath that particular heading. Click the plus sign to select that heading and all of the subheadings and all of the body text residing below it. Double-click a plus sign to collapse or expand that part of the outline.
Another benefit of outlines
Since outlines are based on the heading styles already used in Word, you are able to very quickly and automatically build a table of contents using your existing document. You can read the previous article in this series to learn how to build a TOC.
Organization
Outlines can be a powerful way to organize your documents and build in a piecemeal way. At first, the concept is a little confusing, but, after some practice, you'll find that using an outline makes other tasks, such as creating a table of contents, much easier down the line.
Notice that the addition of headings and body text has changed the minus signs at those levels to plus signs. This indicates that there is content beneath that particular heading. Click the plus sign to select that heading and all of the subheadings and all of the body text residing below it. Double-click a plus sign to collapse or expand that part of the outline.
Another benefit of outlines
Since outlines are based on the heading styles already used in Word, you are able to very quickly and automatically build a table of contents using your existing document. You can read the previous article in this series to learn how to build a TOC.
Organization
Outlines can be a powerful way to organize your documents and build in a piecemeal way. At first, the concept is a little confusing, but, after some practice, you'll find that using an outline makes other tasks, such as creating a table of contents, much easier down the line.
