Having expandalble\hideable levels in an outline

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dan Irwin
  • Start date Start date
D

Dan Irwin

Hi,

Over the past few months I have been making a rather long outline for
one for the courses i was taking. Every time I would read something
for the course i would takes notes onto it and adds those notes to an
ongoing outline which i was making. By the end of this course i had a
30+ page outline. In this outline there are varying levels of detail,
each level in (further indented) being a bit more in depth then the
one before it. Now that i am finished with the course i thought that i
would try and keep using the same outline in courses i do in the
future so that i can cut down on how much my brain is scattered. The
only problem with this is that i don't need so much detail in every
subject i took notes on this time around for all of the other courses
i will have. Because of i was wondering if there was anyway, within
word out outside of word, which i could take my outline and make it so
that i can expand only certain headings (you know like those + and -
things you see in dialogs such as the device manager)? I put a link to
one of my outlines here: http://tinyurl.com/2wlaz
(http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~sirwin/siance03 final/ecology/kingdoms/Animalia.doc)

Thanks for the help,

Dan

P.S

Because i needed more then 10 levels in a lot of cases i used self
indented LSITUM felids after the 10 levels of numbering ran out.
 
Dan said:
[I have a] 30+ page outline. In this outline there are
varying levels of detail, each level [...] being a bit
more in depth then the one before it. I was wondering
if there was anyway, [...] I could take my outline
so that it can expand only certain headings (you know
like those + and - things you see in dialogs such as the
device manager)? I put a link to one of my outlines here:
http://tinyurl.com/2wlaz
(http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~sirwin/siance03%
Click to expand...
20final/ecology/kingdoms/Animalia.doc)

I think your outline is well thought out. Why mess
with a clear and easy to follow structure. However,
if you insist on trying to manage the complexity
in your outline then the easiest way is to become
a woman. But I see you're a student so you won't
have the money yet for a sex change. Ah well, it's no
use getting bitter about that set of ribs that was taken
from us in the beginning.

Of course the next best thing to being a woman, is
to take the advice of a woman

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.
html

(This article details the way to use Word's outline
view. This view can automatically expand and collapse
the detail in your outline.)
 
Modify Word's heading styles (named "Heading 1" through "Heading 9")
to have the desired font formatting and so on, and then define their
numbering, using the techniques at
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html. When
you have the desired formatting, save the document as a template. In
the future, use File > New to create documents that need this type of
formatting. And use Outline View to display and print the desired
number of heading levels. For more information about Outline View,
see: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm
 
Corrected version:

Modify Word's heading styles (named "Heading 1" through "Heading 9")
to have the desired font formatting and so on, and then define their
numbering *and* indents, using the techniques at
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html. When
you have the desired formatting, save the document as a template. In
the future, use File > New to create documents that need this type of
formatting. And use Outline View to display and print the desired
number of heading levels. For more information about Outline View,
see: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm
 
You have to be in Outline View, where you can click on the plus signs to
expand and collapse. Read the link re Outline View for additional useful
functions.

DM
 
I know about that, but is there anyway of convereting from the
numbering to the outline view, short of retyping my whole thing
 
You just click View | Outline on the menu. Did you read the linked page?

But you need to have Heading Styles applied to the headings for it to work
as you want.

DM
 
No, you don't have to retype your text, but since you have applied
numbering without using paragraph styles, you have to reformat your
document.

There are two ways to handle this:

Method 1
********
For each paragraph of your outline, specify an outline level from
the Paragraph dialog (Format > Paragraph). When you've done this, you
can use Outline View and expand and collapse your outline. However,
this approach won't let you save your numbering scheme for future use.

Method 2
********
Alternatively, you can modify the heading styles (which by default
have the appropriate outline levels defined) to have the formatting
(numbering, indents, font, font size, color and so on) that you need.
And then you can apply the appropriate heading style to each paragraph
of text. This approach adds the possibility to save your outline to a
template for future use.

Here's instructions for Method 2:
*********************************
Open your document. It's probably a good idea to print it, so that you
can easily see the desired formatting.

No matter if you choose to print the document or not, you should do a
File > Save As to make a copy of the document. Work with the copy,
just in case anything goes wrong. (If everything goes right, you can
then delete the original document!)

You can even create a new blank document and work with that instead of
with the original document. That way, if you want to create a
template, you get a fresh start, since numbering schemes tend to
accumulate in documents that has been around for a while, especially
if numbering was created without paragraph styles.

First define all formatting aspects except for numbering and indents
for your heading styles. In other words, modify the Heading 1 style so
that it has the font, font size, color and so on that you want for the
top level of your numbering scheme. Do the same with Heading 2 through
Heading 9.

Then define the numbering and indents as described at
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html.

In order to apply this to your existing text, select the entire
document and press CTRL+Q, which will remove any direct paragraph
formatting (such as numbering). It won't remove the text. Finally,
apply the heading styles to the appropriate paragraphs. When you're
done, you can select View > Outline and expand and collapse text as
desired.

If you don't want to mess with your existing document, you can perform
the procedure described above on a new, blank document and then save
it as a template. This adds the advantage of getting a clean template,
with no other numbering schemes in it.
 
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