Word’s collapsible menu feature

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Hi all

I’m using Word 2013 and have just now discovered that a few of my (long) existing documents has text which is configured to act as a collapsible menu (how they got in there, I’ve got no idea) and until a few days ago I had no idea what a collapsible menu even was.
Now, I know how to revert the text back to the way it was & get rid of the arrow, but whenever I disable the “collapsation” the “collapsation” the whole title loses its bold formatting and changes the font size. I can only change the ‘de-collapsation’ process wherever it appears in the document, does anybody know whether it’s possible (and how to) remove all instances of collapsation throughout the entire document simultaneously and without changing any existing formatting?

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😡
Hi all

I’m using Word 2013 and have just now discovered that a few of my (long) existing documents has text which is configured to act as a collapsible menu (how they got in there, I’ve got no idea) and until a few days ago I had no idea what a collapsible menu even was.
Now, I know how to revert the text back to the way it was & get rid of the arrow, but whenever I disable the “collapsation” the “collapsation” the whole title loses its bold formatting and changes the font size. I can only change the ‘de-collapsation’ process wherever it appears in the document, does anybody know whether it’s possible (and how to) remove all instances of collapsation throughout the entire document simultaneously and without changing any existing formatting?

It sounds like you have the view set to Outline mode. Have a look at the left hand end of the View tab of the Ribbon.

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I know how to revert the text back to the way it was & get rid of the arrow, but whenever I disable the “collapsation” the “collapsation” the whole title loses its bold formatting and changes the font size.

If dogknees’ suggestion doesn’t fix it for you, it sounds like you may be changing styles from eg Heading 1 to Normal.

If your problem isn’t resolved, post how you revert the text, and ideally attach a small sample doc.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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Hi Lugh

You are exactly right, scattered rows of text affected with this collapsible feature is [/B]Heading 1; now painstakingly I’m going through the document row-by-row to determine which rows need to be reverted back to Normal.
The two things that really bug me are (as previously mentioned): any contained formatting gets lost and only one row at a time can be changed back to Normal?
Do you know if it’s possible to revert the whole document to Normal – only; without affecting the existing text?
My IT skills are really poor and I wouldn’t know how to post a sample onto this site.

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Hi Lugh

You are exactly right, scattered rows of text affected with this collapsible feature is [/B]Heading 1; now painstakingly I’m going through the document row-by-row to determine which rows need to be reverted back to Normal.
The two things that really bug me are (as previously mentioned): any contained formatting gets lost and only one row at a time can be changed back to Normal?
Do you know if it’s possible to revert the whole document to Normal – only; without affecting the existing text?
My IT skills are really poor and I wouldn’t know how to post a sample onto this site.

Rows of text = paragraphs of text?
Word thinks in paragraphs. To Word a paragraph is any text followed by a paragraph mark (inserted when you press the Enter key).

You need to learn about Styles and you need to do that NOW.
Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word
Tips for Understanding Styles

If you modify the style that is preceding the text you want to be normal style text, so that the style for the following paragraph is set to normal style that should do what you want, if I am understanding you.

I generally have my Heading 1 style followed by Heading 2 followed by Heading 3 followed by Body Text.

If you have your Home tab displayed, you can correct the automatic to be what you want.

Yes, you can change your entire document to normal style. That will change the entire document (existing text) to normal style. I do not think that is what you want.

You may benefit greatly by going through Shauna Kelly’s Basic Concepts of Microsoft Word.

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OK thanks Charles (and everyone else) – we can put this matter to rest now.

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a few of my (long) existing documents has text which is configured to act as a collapsible menu … does anybody know whether it’s possible (and how to) remove all instances of collapsation throughout the entire document simultaneously and without changing any existing formatting?

it sounds like you may be changing styles from eg Heading 1 to Normal

You are exactly right, scattered rows of text affected with this collapsible feature is [/B]Heading 1

painstakingly I’m going through the document row-by-row to determine which rows need to be reverted back to Normal.

The two things that really bug me are (as previously mentioned): any contained formatting gets lost and only one row at a time can be changed back to Normal?
Do you know if it’s possible to revert the whole document to Normal – only; without affecting the existing text?

Caveat: you can make your documents a nightmare to maintain if you continue with that you’re doing, as Charles intimated above. So I strongly suggest you keep your original documents safe, and work only on copies. That said:

If you only need to stop seeing the ‘collapsible arrows’, in the View tab on the ribbon, untick “Navigation Pane”.

If you want more–ie to delete the document navigation–there are 2 fairly easy ways. I don’t have time to give exact detailed directions, just the steps.

1. This takes maybe 2 minutes per document.

1a. Create a style that is a copy of Heading 1, but named something else like say MyHead. This works because Word looks specifically for styles called “Heading X” when creating the navigation [with X being any number 1-9]. Here’s how, using the ribbon:

1b. In the Editing>Replace dialog, Find all text with Heading 1 style, and global replace [ie “Replace All”] it with the same text [called ‘Find What Text’ in the Replace dialog More>Special] with MyHead style.

What you get: The navigation gone [no more ‘collapsation’], but the format retained, with the headings now styled as MyHead.

2. If you don’t even want a MyHead style, only Normal style with manual formatting changes, then this might take 3-4 minutes per document.

2a. In the Editing>Replace dialog, Find all text with Heading 1 style, and global replace [ie “Replace All”] it with the same text [called ‘Find What Text’ in the Replace dialog More>Special, symbol ^&].
Before you click “Replace All”, surround the Find What symbol with a couple of unique ‘tags’. You end up with sth like QJX^&KMZ.

2b. Select all the document and click ‘Clear All’ formatting, then click Normal. Now all your doc is bog standard normal.

2c. Use the global replace method with Wildcard to find all QJX*KMZ instances and replace them with Find What Text with the formatting you want, via the Format button in the Replace dialog. The star symbol * is a wildcard which represents all text between the 2 tags.

2d. You now have all the headings with the formatting you want, surrounded by the 2 tags. Final step is to global replace the tags with nothing, which deletes them.

What you get: The navigation gone [no more ‘collapsation’], all the document in Normal style, but the format retained [or changed to your liking] in the headings.

If there’s any other formatting in the document which you also want to preserve [eg italics] while changing the whole doc to Normal style, then follow the same steps for each different kind of formatting.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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