Collapsing and Expanding Subdocuments

Word allows you to organize your documents into a hierarchical relationship, such that one document is considered a master document and others are considered subdocuments. Many people use master documents to aggregate information presented in several subdocuments--for instance, each subdocument may represent a chapter in a book, and the master document represents the entire book.

As you are working with your master document, you may find it handy (at times) to not see your entire subdocuments. Instead, you can view your subdocuments as simple links, instead of as an entire file. These links look very similar to hyperlinks (on the World Wide Web): they are simply file names shown in blue and underlined. When you move the mouse pointer over the link, it changes to a pointing finger. If you then click your mouse on the link, Word opens the subdocument in its own window.

When Word displays subdocuments as links, in Word terminology they (the subdocuments) are collapsed. When they are displayed as full files, they are expanded. To collapse your subdocuments, all you need to do is click your mouse on the Collapse Subdocuments tool on the Outline toolbar. If you later want to expand your subdocuments, you simply click your mouse on the Expand Subdocuments tool.