Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007 and 2010. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Printing an Outline.

Printing an Outline

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 17, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 2007 and 2010

If you are using Outline view, Word will print only the heading levels you have chosen to display. This means you can print an outline for your document easily and quickly. To print a single copy of your outline, follow these steps:

Make sure your outline shows all the headings you want displayed.
Make sure each heading is formatted in the appropriate manner.
Print your document as you normally would. (A good way is to just press Ctrl+P.)

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10806) applies to Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Printing an Outline.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is 1 + 1?

2020-11-06 01:27:37

Michael Schilmoeller

It worked for me (Word 2010), but I had to use the QuickPrint tool in the Customized Quick Access Toolbar at the top of the Outline View window. Using Ctrl-P and everything else I tried took me back to the general Menu>File>Print environment, where the only option appeared to be to print the whole document, rather than the outline

2014-12-01 08:19:21

Dave K

Sorry, the tip did not work at all with Word 2010, no matter what I select, all I get is the entire document. Any clues to a workaround... not quick print, not CTRL-P.... all give the document at all levels

2014-11-27 04:21:46

Tony Nixon

Correction:
When I tried the first print from the outline view, not trusting it to work (on the basis of the visible print preview) I selected that I only wanted pages 1-3 of the document. This might have been my mistake.
If I leave it set to 'Print the entire document' it seems to work _although_ all the introductory pages i.e. those before the first level 1 heading are printed too - even though they do not appear on the outline view on the screen!

2014-11-27 04:09:47

Tony Nixon

I have the same problem as Katharine:
The outline view works perfectly well on screen, but if I try printing it, it prints the whole document.
If I create a .pdf from the outline view it gives me a .pdf of the whole document.
If I create a .xps from the outline view it gives me a .xps of the whole document.

What else can I try?

2014-11-19 07:47:25

Dave Sheppard

Katharine, in Word 2010 the print dialogue indicates that it is going to print the entire document, but it does only physically print the selected levels.
When I read your post, I checked it printing to PDF (rather than waste paper) and it printed just the levels selected.

2011-11-03 14:49:07

Katharine Hough

Outline printing has not worked since Word 2007. Everytime I try to print the outline I get the entire document.

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