Special Edition Using Microsoft® Word 2000

Understanding Outline View

Soon, you'll learn techniques for polishing your outline to make sure your document is actually structured the way you want. First, however, you notice three things about Outline view:

• Each paragraph has a symbol to its left. These symbols tell you what you need to know about the paragraph's relationship to surrounding text:

  • A plus sign (+) tells you the paragraph has subordinate text. This text may consist of lower-level headings, paragraphs formatted in styles that Word does not recognize as a heading or outline level, or both.

  • A minus sign (–) tells you the paragraph has no subordinate text. In other words, the paragraph has a heading style or outline level, but no subheads or body text are beneath it.

  • A small ...