How to Create Collapsible Headings in a Word Document

If you have Word 2013 or earlier versions in your computer you can use from this feature of Word.

By this, you can read or manage your text more easily.

In the following text, we will explain some of the benefits which collapsed heading has for us.

But before that, I want to explain why we can not see this capability in our text in some situations.

Why Can not See Collapsive Headings in The Document;

There are two reasons that you cannot see “collapsive headings” in your document.

1- The version of Word which you are using from it is later than 2013.

Only in Word 2013 or earlier version, you can see this feature.

2- You did not specify the heading for your document.

Before explaining how to specify heading, if you click on the heading in your text in the style window, you can see Normal Style is selected, it shows that you did not specify heading for your text.

For specifying the heading for your document you should follow these steps;

1- Click on the Heading.

2- Go to the Home tab.

3- In the Style part Click on the Heading.

According to the position of your heading in the text you can choose Heading 1 or 2 or 3.

4- Repeat these steps for other headings.

5- When you specify all headings in your text you can Right-click on one of them.

6- Choose Expand/Collapse.

7- Choose “Collapse All Headings”.

Here you can see all headings on one page. this features can bring for you some benefits like reading, moving, deleting and managing chapters in your text much easier.

I am going to explain some of them here.

How to Move Chapters in Collapsive Mode.

Here I want to move Chapters second and third and fourth to the end of the document.

If you want to move one or some chapters to the other place you can

1- Select them.

2- Hold Ctrl and then press X or right-click on them and click on the Cut key.

3- Place your cursor on the heading which is located after those chapters.

4- Hold Ctrl and then press V.

But here because we want to move these chapters to the end of the document, I recommend, paste them before the last chapter,

For that, you should place your mouse at the beginning of the last chapter line.

and paste them to that position and then move the last chapter to your desired position.

How to Delete Chapters in Collapsive Mode.

1- Select your desired chapters.

2- Press Delete key.

How to Collapse all the Headings by Default.

1- Select all Headings.

2- Click on the Home tab.

3- In the Paragraph section click on the launcher.

4- In the General section, select the “Collapse by default” box.

5- Click Ok.

After that when you open this file, all the headings will be collapsed.

How to Print Collapsive Document.

You should pay attention to this point that only expanded part in the document will be printed.

You should expand the sections which you want to print them before printing your document.

1- Right-click on one of the heading.

2- Choose “Expand All Heading” for printing all the pages in the document.

• If you want to print the only specific section you should click on them and select “Expand heading” option.

If you want to see how your file will appear before printing

3- Go to the File.

4- Click on Print.

In the Print preview window, you can see the appearance of your text before printing.