In a long document, you may sometimes want to focus only on one part of the document. In such cases, you can hide or collapse other parts of the document. This will help you to focus on the portion you want to work on.

To be able to hide or show (collapse or expand) parts of a document, you must have used heading styles to format the titles.

Collapse or Hide a Part of the Word Document

By default, all the contents in a document are visible.

When you hide contents under a particular heading, then the next visible section would be a heading formatted at the same or higher level.

For example, if you have collapsed content a title formatted as Heading 3, all contents till the next Heading 2 or Heading 1 (whichever comes first) are hidden. Similarly, if you have collapsed content under a title formatted as Heading 3, all contents till the next Heading 3, Heading 2 or Heading 1 (whichever comes first) are hidden.

To hide a part of the document:

1. Position your mouse cursor on the left of a title till you see thesymbol.
   
   
2. Click . All content under the title is hidden and the symbol changes to .
   
   

Expand or Show a Collapsed Part of the Word Document

The symbol is displayed to the left of all titles with collapsed/hidden content.

To expand or show a part that is hidden or collapsed:

• Click next to the title. All content under the title are now displayed and the symbol changes to . The symbol is displayed only when the mouse cursor is to the left of the title.