Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. 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.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 31, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021
Outline view allows you to easily see the heading levels that you've used in your document. (You switch to Outline view by using the Outline tool on the View tab of the ribbon.) If you do a lot of work in Outline view, you may want to print just the outline at some time.
This is easier to do in Word than you may suspect. All you need to do is to switch to Outline view and then make sure you are viewing just the heading levels that you want to print. Then, press Ctrl+P. Word displays the Print area of the back office. (If you are using Word 2007, then the Print dialog box is displayed.) Click the Print button, and your outline is printed.
There is a real chance for confusion here, though. When you press Ctrl+P, Word makes it look as if you are going to print the whole document. In fact, the whole document is shown in the Print Preview area. Despite this, when you click the Print button, only the outline—what you had displayed before you pressed Ctrl+P—is sent to the printer.
Microsoft could obviously make this less confusing, but it has not chosen to do so. Understand that you should press Ctrl+P and then immediately click Print. If you make any changes to settings after you press Ctrl+P, then you'll override printing of the outline and may, instead, end up printing the entire document.
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, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Printing an Outline.
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2024-09-03 00:35:14
jms
Hi Allen,
I tried your suggestion regarding printing outline view "Despite this, when you click the Print button, only the outline—what you had displayed before you pressed Ctrl+P—is sent to the printer." and it would not print the outline. It only gave me my full document.
I even tried print selection only and sill, the result was the entire document. jms
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. 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:
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