Understanding View Options

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 25, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

It seems that Word can be customized in an almost unlimited number of ways. One way in which you can customize Word is by specifying how information will appear when it is viewed on your screen. The types of customizations available, however, depend on the View you are using. (Views--such as Normal, Page Layout, and Outline--have been covered in other WordTips.) The upshot of this is that you should check the View tab of the Options dialog box (choose Options from the Tools menu, then click on View) in each of your different Views. At the top of the dialog box you can see a notation of which View you are using, and the rest of the dialog box contains the specific options Word maintains for that View.

The behavior of the View tab is a bit different in Word 2000 and Word 2002. In these versions, Word doesn't differ the controls in the View tab based on the view you are using. Instead, all available controls are shown in the tab, but they are organized differently than in previous versions of Word.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (652) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

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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