Understanding the Document Map

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 24, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

As you are working with large or complex documents, it is often easy to lose your place and spend a lot of time trying to find information. Word includes a special viewing mode that can help you navigate through your document quickly and easily. This special viewing mode is called the Document Map.

Displaying the Document Map is easy—just choose Document Map from the View menu. This menu option is actually a toggle; selecting the option once turns it on, and then selecting it a second time turns it off.

You can tell when you are using the Document Map because an outline of your document appears at the left side of the screen, with the document text at the right.

Once the Document Map is displayed, you use it by clicking your mouse on one of the headings in the outline portion of the screen. When you do, the text portion is changed to display the portion of the document containing the heading on which you clicked.

You can scroll through the outline and the text areas separately. Remember, however, that clicking your mouse on the outline results in a change in the text portion of the 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 (1220) 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...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Ensuring Proper Page Numbers for a Table of Authorities

Automatically create a Table of Authorities entry in your document, and Word might place the necessary field at the wrong ...

Discover More

Getting Rid of Spaces in Cells

Importing data into Excel that was generated in other programs can have some interesting side effects. For instance, you ...

Discover More

Creating a Table of Contents from Heading Levels

If your document is any length at all, adding a table of contents is a nice touch. This tip demonstrates how easy it is ...

Discover More

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 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Navigating In the Document Map

Using the Document Map to navigate through your document is easy and intuitive. The value of using it for navigation is ...

Discover More

Controlling the Outline in the Document Map

When you display the Document Map, you are essentially looking at an outline of the document at the same time as you ...

Discover More

Opening the Document Map by Default

The Document Map can be a handy tool to use when navigating and working with a large document. If you want the Document ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is nine minus 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.