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 if you are using a version of Word prior to Word 2007:

1. Make sure you are not viewing your document in Print Layout view. For instance, choose Normal view.
2. Choose Options from Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
3. Make sure the View tab is displayed. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. Make sure the Wrap to Window check box, at the bottom of the dialog box, is cleared.
5. Click on OK.

If you are using Word 2007 then you should follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click Advanced at the left of the dialog box.
3. Scroll through the available options until you see the Show Document Content section. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. Make sure the Show Text Wrapped Within the Document Window check box is cleared.
5. Click on OK.

Regardless of your version of Word, 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.