Microsoft Word::View Tab

The View tab in Microsoft Word 2007 has the functionality to change your document views. The View tab has the following groups: Document Views, Show/ Hide, Zoom, Window and Macros.

In the Document Views group, you can use the following views as shown below in the red rectangle: Print Layout, Full Screen Reading, Web Layout, Outline, and Draft view. This group can also be accessed from the Toolbar located on the right bottom of your document. Let us take a look at these views one at a time. The screen shot below shows what the Print Layout looks like. This view can be used to see what your document will look like when printed. Print Layout is also the default view of Microsoft Word 2007.

Next let us take a look at the Full Screen Reading. You can use this one to see the document in reading mode in Microsoft Word 2007. When using this view, the Ribbon is hidden to maximize your reading area. Here's what it looks like on my computer for the current document.

Moving on to the Web Layout in Microsoft Word 2007 Document Views. This layout is handy especially when you want to see the document in a web browser format like the Internet Explorer. A screen shot of this layout is as follows.

The Outline view is probably one of the most useful styles especially if you are working on a long document in Microsoft Word 2007. When you switch to this layout, all you see is the document divided into different heading levels. You can choose the level of detail that you would like to see by controlling the Show Level option. Here's an example of what this view looks like in action.

The final layout we are going to look at is the Draft view. This is the most common format as you will use this one when working on a document. When using this layout style you will see the document in a regular editing format. The headers and footers are not available when working with the Draft view in Microsoft Word 2007.

There is a screen shot of what this looks like for my document.

The next group in the View Tab that we will look at is the Show/Hide group. Using this group, you can turn on options like the Ruler, Gridlines, Document Map and Thumbnails. Let us take a look at some of these options next. The Ruler displays on the left and top sides off your document and uses inches as measurement. This gives you more control on the document appearance from a formatting point of view.

A screen shot is as follows.

If you will be working with pictures and images in Microsoft Word 2007, the Gridlines can be beneficial feature to relatively position your item location. The Gridlines have been turned on for the following figure and appear as horizontal and vertical lines.

Using the Document Map, you can navigate through the structure of your document especially if you happen to be working on a long one. The document map will show on the left side in its own area. You can navigate to different areas by clicking on the heading in the document map.

Here's a screen shot of what it may look like.

Finally the Thumbnails are also a great navigation tool for your Microsoft Word 2007 document. The pages in your document will be displayed as thumbnails on the left side of the document. You can move from one page to another by simply clicking on the thumbnails as shown in the picture below.

Sometimes it is necessary to zoom in and out to get a better idea of what your document looks like or how will it show up on a Printer. The Zoom group in Microsoft Word 2007 View Tab lets you do just that. When you click on the zoom command in on the Ribbon, you will get a new dialog box as shown below.

Go ahead and select the zoom level that you would like to use in your Microsoft Word 2007 document. For our demo we will use 75% and then click OK. This will adjust our document size to show just 75% of the size. There's a screen shot of this as follows. Notice if you look at the red rectangle on the bottom right portion of this page, you will also see the zooming toolbar. This gives you yet another way to control the zooming factor!

I'm going to switch the scale to about 150% instead. This time I'm going to use Zooming toolbar on the bottom right part. This will adjust the size of our document accordingly. Notice as you zoom in, the text and objects in your document will increase in size. Here's what it looks like when I used 150% zoom level.

When you finally need to switch back to 100%, you can just click on this command on the zone group.

I've included a screen shot here.

The last option in the Zoom group is the two page option. When I click on this command, Microsoft Word 2007 will display two pages of my document at a time. This is useful when you are trying to give your document final touches before you email or send it to the printer. The pages will be shown side to side as noted below.

The next group is the Window group in Microsoft Word 2007 View tab. This group essentially lets you work on the same document utilizing different views and windows. When you select the New Window option, it will open a new window containing the same document. This can be useful if you need to see two different sections of the same document at the same time.

For example I am working on the baseline project information; however I need to see table of contents and also the detailed project information at the same time. I can easily use the New Window feature as mentioned above to achieve this. Here's what it looks like. I have one view of the document on the top where I can review the table on contents. On the bottom view, I can see the actual project details.

Split feature is also similar in concept to the New Window option; however Split does not open up a new window. It just splits the current document into two parts within the same window. This again lets you view different parts of the document at the same time.

There's a screen shot of what I'm talking about.

Notice the highlighted red rectangle where it split the document into two. Please be aware that you can still make changes in either section which would be applied to both split views. Split once again lets you view different parts of the document at the same time. There's a screen shot of what I'm talking about.

Every now and then it is necessary to view the same document side by side. This can be handy when you are comparing maybe two sections that are related. I can easily do this by viewing the document side by side. I can also control the size and the scrolling of the two windows.

Here's a screen shot of what I am talking about using Side by Side.

For example I have a “Discussion of Critical Path” in my table of contents and then I have more information in the detailed section of my document. I want to make sure that the order in table of content matches the parts in detail section accordingly. The picture below highlights what I am talking about using Side by Side option.

When I'm done comparing the two views, I can use the Reset Window Position to go back to my original setting.

This is shown in the figure below.

The last option under the Window group is the Switch Windows option. This will let you toggle between the two copies of the same document that you may be working on at the same time.

You can use this feature as shown below.

The last option under the View Tab is Macros option. Macros are useful in re-enabling a certain order of tasks that you may perform commonly. For example, if you add a title, heading, your name and date to almost every document that you put together, it makes sense to add these steps to a Macro and then run it every time you start a new document.

This concludes the lesson on View Tab in Microsoft Word 2007.
If you are unable to find the information you are looking for, please visit Microsoft's Word home page