Anatomy of Word: Use the Outline View to build complete and persuasive documents
The lines with the plus signs form the beginnings of an outline
The symbols (the plus signs and the small squares and, if you have headings with no text underneath, minus signs) each have a meaning, too. The plus sign starts a new part of the outline. If you were to take just the lines of text with plus signs next to them, and you keep the indentation, you get a document that looks a whole lot like an outline.
