Make Word Processing Easier and Reduce Printing Costs with Split View

There are lots of word processing techniques which can make life easier for writers, and “split view” falls into this category. In Microsoft Word, sometimes I need to view a different part of the same document when I’m editing a section. This was the case last night on my dissertation, when I needed to view the page numbers of different “tables” so I could manually update my “List of Tables” page. By choosing WINDOW – SPLIT VIEW, I created two different windows into the same document which had separate scrolling controls. I scrolled through the document in the lower window to identify page numbers for different tables, and then updated the table of contents in the upper window.

I am using (and LOVE) the automated table of contents feature of MS Word for my main TOC, but I was unsure how to create a second auto-updating page for my table list. Since mine is not TOO long, this wasn’t very laborious.

I thought I’d pass along the “split view” word processing technique in case you haven’t heard about it and/or need it at some point. It’s a much “greener” solution than printing out an entire document to refer to page numbers!

I’m guessing free word processing programs like Open Office and NeoOffice also support a split window view.

Consider sharing this tip with your students. This isn’t a technique they’ll likely need to use often, but when needed it can come in handy… and enable less printing!

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