Long gone are the days of editing your document in a word processor, printing it out, and seeing what you get. The contemporary word processor possesses some of the power of a desktop publishing application.
As usual, Microsoft Word leads the way with more features and convenience tools than any other word processor on the market.
Word’s convenient Print View is a nearly perfect visual representation of how your document will look after you send it to your printer. However, some people prefer the older style Draft View to edit their documents.
Which view you prefer, it is possible in Word to split the screen to view two parts of the same document at the same time.
Why View Two Parts of a Document?
Although there are an infinite number of reasons why you might want to view two parts of the same Word document, there are two that are quite common. First, suppose you are writing a report and you made a list near the top of your document indicating the topics you will cover later in the same document.
By splitting the screen, you can remind yourself of the topics you want to cover while writing about them farther down in your report.
Second, if you write papers for your college classes, you likely use some sort of citation style such as APA, MLA, or Harvard. By splitting the screen, you can search the document for citations in the text to make sure that every citation has a reference in the references section and every reference appears in the document as a citation.
Whatever your reasons, being able to see different parts of the same Word document can be not only convenient but a real time saver as well.
How to See Two Parts of the Same Word Document
To see two parts of the same document, begin by clicking on the View tab on the Word Ribbon and locating the section titled Window. There are a number of options on this part of the Ribbon but to the far right you will see three button titled New Window, Arrange All, and Split. Click on the Split button.
Word will immediately place a grey line on the screen that you can move up and down with your mouse. This line is simply where you want the split to be on the screen.
It doesn’t matter where you place the split for now because you can move it anywhere to make one or the other split screens the size you want. Place the grey line where you want the initial split and click the left mouse button.
Notice that you now have two views of the same document. You can scroll each one independently of the other and see two places in your word document at the same time.
If you play around with the two views for a while you will notice a few things. Each view of the document is treated like two separate documents even though you are viewing the same one. You can zoom, scroll, and even change the type of view (print, draft, outline, etc.) for each view individually.
Because you are simply seeing two views of the same document, any changes you make to one will be made to the other view as well. In fact, you can edit the text in either view by simply clicking on it and typing.
Having two views of the same Word document can save you time by allowing you to edit one view while not losing sight of the second. Using the split screen feature in Word, you can spend less time scrolling and more time getting your work done.