Microsoft Word Views

Just above the Status Bar in Microsoft are four button known as the View Buttons.

The View Buttons in Word XP (Windows)
The View Buttons in Word X (Macintosh)

These buttons are used to control how Word displays your document. From left to right, the buttons are:

  • Normal View (default view)
    • Body text appears with full formatting and layout.
    • Headers and Footers do not appear.
    • Footnotes do not appear.
    • Page breaks are visible as a dashed line.
    • The left and right page edges do not appear.
    • Since this is not full WYSWIG, this view displays faster
  • Web Layout View (Word 2000 or XP) or Online Layout View (Word 2001 or X)
    • Shows how any document would appear as a web document.
    • If you are using Word to create web pages, you use this view.
  • Print Layout View (Word 2000 or XP) or Page Layout View (Word 2001 or X)
    • This is a true WYSWIG view. All of the items not visible in Normal View are visible.
    • It is the most accurate of all views but is the slowest to display because of all of the elements visible.
  • Outline View
    • It is a specialized view that you can use to organize a document..
    • In this view you can collapse and expand portions of the document so that you can see only the outline headings you desire.
    • The real key to using this view efficiently is to use Heading styles because these styles are recognized by Word when in Outline view.
Return to
Word 2001
Word X

Copyright©2003
last updated August 12, 2003