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Hack 46 Build a Better Outline

Many Word users are at least aware of Outline
view, and many use it to help structure lengthy documents. But when
the outline is the document, few take advantage
of the features Outline view has to offer.

Outlining is
a common Word task. In its simplest
form, you use Word's built-in heading styles to
sketch out a document's structure, promoting,
demoting, and rearranging headings as you work.

Though you can create an actual outline, complete with numbering and
indenting, using Word's
Outline Numbering feature (go to FormatBullets and
Numbering and choose the Outline Numbered tab), why bother
duplicating the effort when Word's heading styles
are already set up for it?

There is a bit of work involved in setting up your outline template,
but the time you'll save in the long run makes it
well worth the effort.

First, select FileNew and create a new template. Save your
new template as Outline.dot.

Next, select FormatStyles and Formatting
(FormatStyle in Word 2000), choose the Heading 1 style, and
click the Modify button to display the Modify Style dialog shown in
Figure 5-2. Choose "(no
style)" from the "Style based
on" drop-down list, and choose
"Heading 2" from the
"Style for following paragraph"
drop-down list. For the formatting, choose Times New Roman, 12
points, with no Bold applied.

Figure 5-2. Modifying the heading styles for the Outline template

Click the Format button and choose Paragraph, and change the Space
Before and After settings to 6 and 3 points, respectively, as shown
in Figure 5-3.

Figure 5-3. Changing the Space Before and After settings makes text look better on the page

Next, modify the Heading 2 style. Make the same changes as for
Heading 1, except instead of "(no
style)," choose "Heading
1."

Repeat these steps for each of the remaining seven headings. Change
the font to Times New Roman, change the point size to 12, turn off
Bold and Italic, and change the Space Before and After settings.
Select the previous heading level from the "Style
based on" drop-down list, and choose the next
heading level from the "Style for following
paragraph" drop-down list.

When you're finished, save your template (you
don't want to have to do that
all over again).

Now, go back and modify the Heading 1 style, but this time click the
Format button and choose Numbering to display the dialog shown in
Figure 5-4. One of the choices should look like an
outline with a heading style name listed at each level. Select it,
and click the Reset button.

Figure 5-4. Choose the one that looks like an outline, with the heading style names included

Click the OK button, and then click the OK button again in the Modify
Style dialog. Save and close your new Outline template.

To create a new document with your Outline template, select
FileNew and choose Outline.dot as the
basis for the new document.

Outlines created with Outline.dot will have a
consistent appearance, behave reliably, and be easy to edit using
Outline view. A sample outline is shown in Figure 5-5.

Figure 5-5. The Outline.dot template in action

To promote or demote a paragraph, use the Promote and Demote keyboard
shortcuts: Shift-Alt-Left Arrow and Shift-Alt-Right Arrow.