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: Horizontally Viewing All Your Text.
Normally, Word displays text on the screen as it will appear on a hard-copy printout. This feature is often referred to as WYSIWYG (pronounced whizzy-wig), which means "what you see is what you get." There may be times, however, when viewing documents this way can be bothersome. For instance, if you are working on a very wide document, or if you are using a computer set to a low video resolution. In these instances, the only way to see all your text horizontally is to scroll left and right—which can get to be very tedious.
If you get tired of scrolling left and right, you can try the following:
Figure 1. The Advanced options of the Word Options dialog box.
This check box essentially turns off most of the WYSIWYG features of Word. Instead, none of your document lines will extend beyond the right-most edge of your screen. When you later want to see what your document will look like on a printout, simply repeat the above steps to set the check box.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6019) applies to Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Horizontally Viewing All Your Text.
The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!
The style area, displayed at the left side of your document, can be helpful in understanding how styles are used in your ...
Discover MoreNonprinting characters are a great boon when you are editing a document. Turn them on and you can easily see what characters ...
Discover MoreMany people use the keyboard to do their primary editing tasks. Word doesn't limit you to the keyboard, however. You can also ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2016-03-03 03:46:44
Fran
For Jon J:
Checking or unchecking the setting does work, but only in the Draft View and the Outline View of the document, never for the Print Layout View.
The Print Layout View remains alsways WYSIWYG - but that is exactly what is expected from a Print Layout View, isn't it? ;-)
2016-03-02 14:54:31
Jon J
Useful tip but, unfortunately, isn't working for me. Setting the Text Wrapped... box checked or unchecked didn't change anything with the document I was working on; either way it remained WYSIWYG. Possibly a conflict with another setting?
Also, found it interesting how this tip was approached. "Viewing All Your Text" and then showing to uncheck the box that, if checked, would (supposedly) wrap text so the user could see all the text instead of having to scroll.
Additional thoughts would be appreciated.
2013-01-14 11:58:33
Juan
Excellent tip, very useful for people like me who have an old monitor with low resolution. Thanks Allen for sharing the hint.
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2017 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
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: 
Comments