Sample outlines in word

Find the Best Outline Template Word on Envato Elements for 2023 (Unlimited Use)

Envato Elements is an excellent starting point if you’re looking for premium Microsoft Word templates or specifically brief and outline templates. Access to a digital creative library enables you to effortlessly take all your creative projects to new heights. An Envato Elements membership is a company-wide investment!

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It’s easy to see that Envato Elements is your top source for outline template download options for 2023!

5 Best Premium Outline Template Word for 2023 (From Envato Elements)

Here are five of the best outline templates in Word from Envato Elements that you can download now:

1. Web Questionnaire — Project Outline Template Microsoft Word

Use this template to create a strong, persuasive, and attractive document for web development planning meetings with clients. This document helps you walk through the steps needed to manage the web project. The template comes with 24 professional pages that are easy to edit and use.

2. Brief — Best Outline Template Word

Provide a project outline with this template. List all necessary details like brief, objectives, outcomes, budget, team members, and strategy. This is a 16-page brochure template that’ll help you manage your project in style.

3. Design Brief — Project Outline Template Microsoft Word

20 Top Free MS Word Outline Template Examples to Download (2023)

Are you vague about what to expect from premium creative files? Explore Envato’s unique monthly premium freebies. It’s the best way to try out premium files at no cost to you. 

A Microsoft Word template may not be in among this month’s free collection. But it’s always a good idea to check what’s on offer every month as it keeps changing. You may be in luck and find a file you’d like to use.

Here’s the offer: 

Let’s look at 20 free Microsoft Word outline templates available to download from the internet: 

1. Create  an Outline — Free Word Sample

Here’s a free template from Microsoft Office. There’s no design element to this template. It focuses on the format. 

2. Free Short Essay Outline Sample

This sample outline shows how to list down points before starting on a short essay. It’ll help you gather your thoughts and keep the essay on point.

3. Free Research Outline Template

Break your research paper into introductory, first, second, and conclusion paragraphs. And plan what you need to address in each of these paragraphs with this template. 

4. Free Artist Biography Outline Template

This template walks you through how to create an artist’s biography. The first word of the title is in orange and uses a different font than the second word. There’s a border on the left in brown and orange.

5. Free Sample Biography Outline Template

This template comes with a simple design. There’s a gray border on the top of the document with white fonts. 

6. Speech — Free Microsoft Word Outline Template Download

A speech outline helps you gather your points and arrange them to create an interesting narrative. This template assists you with that.

7. Free Essay Outline with References

This is a clean template with a border on the left for the title of the document. There are four main sections: introduction, body, conclusion, and references.

8. Purple — Free Microsoft Word Outline Template Download

This template looks like a form with five sections. It comes in purple. 

9. Free General Essay Outline

This template has a clean and minimalistic design. It comes with a black border on the top and a line on the left with numbers on it. These numbers show the sections.

10. Free Marketing Strategy Plan Outline

This marketing outline template comes broken up with sections that look like tables. Each main section has a black border and white fonts.

11. Analytical Essay — Free Microsoft Word Outline Template Download

This is a one-page document template. It comes with a border all around it and five sections.

12. Free Reflective Essay Outline Template

13. Free Book Review Sample Outline

This sample review outline comes with questions for you to answer and address while doing your book review.

14. Informative Speech — Free Microsoft Word Outline Template Download

A speech outline helps you lay out all your ideas or points on a single sheet. Move these points accordingly to create a good flow in your speech. 

15. Progress Report — Free Project Outline Template Microsoft Word

This template document addresses key concerns like status, accomplishments, problems, changes, and other comments.

16. Free Personal Biography Outline Sample

This sample document gives you a good idea of how to come up with a biography write-up. Create an outline like this before starting.

17. Free Event Outline Template

This template has a simple design. List the event name, date, location, time, number of guests, the event’s purpose, contact details, and plan. It works as a single sheet of paper that’ll keep everyone well informed on the event day.

18. Free Wedding Ceremony Structure Outline Template

Plan out your wedding ceremony with a clean template with loads of tables. Provide a copy of the structural outline to everyone involved in running the event.

19. Free Biography Report Outline Template

Here’s a simple form to help you ask the right questions and gather the information you need to write a biography.

20. Free News Report Outline Template

5 Quick Tips To Make Great Project Outlines in Word 2023

Here are some quick tips to get you on track to create an impressive and functional project outline for your upcoming project:

1. Pick Premium Over Free

A document looks plain and boring without design elements. It’s just a bunch of words on a piece of paper with nothing inviting or appealing about it. A premium outline template for Microsoft Word from Envato Elements turns a bland outline into an impressive professional document.

2. Incorporate Your Brand Identity

Once you’ve picked your template, it’s time to customize it. Start by changing colors and fonts according to your brand identity. Include your logo and company details. This document should look like it’s a professional document from your company. Save this version for all future projects.

3. Have a Simple But Clear Structure

The content structure of this document is vital. Divide it into sections so it’s easy to read and follow. Think of all possible details you and all other stakeholders need to know and ensure it’s all present in this document.

The idea is that this document serves as a planning document to ensure everyone is on the same page. So, there shouldn’t be any missing pieces to the puzzle. And no one should be lost reading it because of a poor structure.

4. Keep It Minimal

It’s best not to add too much text or sections to a single page. Write in short active sentences and use bullet points, so it’s easy to read and follow. Several clean pages win over a single cluttered page.

5. Print and Distribute 

There are two ways to use an outline document:

Discover More Top Microsoft Word Template Designs

Are you looking for other Microsoft Word business document templates? There are heaps of free and premium options on the internet for you to browse and use. Here are three examples for you to start with:

Learn More About Making Great Word Documents in 2023

Are you new to Microsoft Word? Pin this Beginner’s Tutorial Guide to MS Word on your browser. This guide is a compilation of bite-sized Microsoft Word how-to tutorials. 

A growing compilation like this serves as a quick reference when you’ve got various MS Word-related questions. It saves you from getting into a distracting online search. Here are three examples of tutorials from this guide:

Get a Premium Outline Template Word Today!

When you’re working with a long document, the Outline view helps you arrange your text. It creates an outline based on the styles you use, so it’s easy to see and organize all your headings and subheadings.

Outline View

1. Click the View tab.
2. Click the Outline button in the Views group.

   

The Outline view breaks the document down so that each heading and paragraph is represented by a single line.

Any text formatted with a Heading style will automatically be set at the specified outline level, but you can adjust a line’s outline level manually using the tools on the Outlining tab that appears in Outline view.

Demote or Promote Items

Outline view makes it very easy to adjust the outline level of a heading.

1. Click the item in your document that you want to promote or demote.
2. Click a Promote or Demote option from the Outline Tools group.

   

Promoting a topic moves it to a higher outline level, moving it one spot to the left, while demoting a topic moves it to a lower outline level, one spot to the right.

You can also use the double arrow buttons to promote a topic directly to Level 1, the highest outline level, or demote it all the way to body text.

Collapse and Expand Headings

You can collapse the contents of a heading in Outline view to make it easier to see the rest of a document.

1. Click the item in your document that you want to minimize.
2. To collapse a section, click the Collapse button in the Outline Tools group.

That heading, along with all its subheadings and body text, is collapsed down to a single line.

3. To expand a section, click the Expand button in the Outline Tools group.

   

That section is expanded once again, displaying all the subheadings and body text.

You can choose which outline levels are displayed by clicking the Show Level list arrow and selecting a level. Only sections of that outline level and higher will be displayed.

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MS-Word / General Formatting

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Working with Outlines

Word has built-in outlining tools that are handy whether you like to create
detailed outlines in advance or you just want to check occasionally on the
overall structure of your document to see how it’s evolving. If you use Word to
create reports or proposals or other types of documents that have a sense
of structure to them, you owe it to yourself to find out the basics of working with outlines.

Switching to Outline view

You have two ways to switch to Outline view. You can

• Click the Outline button in the Document Views group on the View tab on the Ribbon.
• Click the Outline button that’s second from the right in the group of buttons
  next to the Zoom slider in the lower-right area of the screen.

Understanding Outline view

The key to understanding Word’s Outline view is realizing that an outline
is just another way of looking at a document. The outline isn’t a separate
entity from the document. Instead, when you switch to Outline view, Word
presents the headings from your document in the form of an outline. Any
changes you make to your document while in Outline view automatically
reflect in the document when you return to Print Layout view, and any
changes you make in Print Layout view automatically appear when you
switch to Outline view. The reason is that Print Layout and Outline view are
merely two ways of displaying the contents of your document.

Note some important concepts about Outline view:

• The outline is made up of the headings and body text of the document.
  Any paragraph formatted with a built-in heading style (Heading 1,
  Heading 2, or Heading 3, for example) is considered to be a heading; any
  other paragraph is considered body text.
• When you switch to Outline view, a new tab appears on the Ribbon,
  and the ruler (which isn’t needed in Outline view) disappears. This tab,
  appropriately named the Outlining tab, contains buttons for performing
  routine outlining tasks.
• When you first switch to Outline view, your document may not appear
  dramatically different from the way it does in Print Layout view. In the
  following sections, you see how you view your document quite differently
  in Outline view from the way you view it in Print Layout view.
• While Word is in Outline view, you can type new text or edit existing text
  just as you do in Print Layout view. You can also apply character formatting,
  such as bold or italic, and you can apply styles to paragraphs.
  However, it’s best not to apply direct paragraph formats, such as indentation,
  tab stops, and alignment in Outline view, because you can’t see the results of those changes there. (They show up when you switch back to Print Layout view.)
  Outline view has its own set of keyboard shortcuts to help you move things along.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Outline View

Keyboard Shortcut 		What It Does
Ctrl+Alt+O 		Switches to Outline view
Ctrl+Alt+P 		Switches back to Print Layout view
Ctrl+Alt+N 		Switches back to Draft view
Alt+Shift+A 		Collapses or expands all text
Alt+Shift+- 		(hyphen) Collapses the selection
Alt+Shift++ 		(plus) Expands the selection
Alt+Shift+1 		Collapses or expands to Heading 1
Alt+Shift+(number) 	Collapses or expands to specified
                        heading level
/ (on numeric keypad) 	Hides or shows formatting
Shift+Tab 		Promotes selection
Alt+Shift+← 		Promotes selection
Tab 			Demotes selection
Alt+Shift+→		Demotes the selection
Ctrl+Shift+N 		Demotes selection to body text
Alt+Shift+↑ 		Moves selection up, similar to cutting
                                and pasting it
Alt+Shift+↑		Moves selection down, similar to cutting
                                and pasting it

Showing and hiding formatting

Before you spend too much time working in Outline view, you may want
to hide the formatting from the outline so that you can concentrate more
closely on the document’s structure. Hiding the formatting in Outline view
doesn’t remove the formatting from your text; it just temporarily hides it.

To show the text formatting in the outline, select the Show Text Formatting check box.

Keep these tips in mind when using the Show Text Formatting check box:

• To hide formatting, deselect the Show Text Formatting check box.
• You need no formatting to distinguish among heading levels because the
  headings are indented for you. I usually work in Outline view with formatting turned off.
• When you hide formatting, you’re doing just that — hiding it. You’re not
  removing it. When you deselect the Show Text Formatting check box or
  return to Print Layout or Draft view, all the formatting you so carefully applied to your document is restored.

Collapsing and expanding the outline

One main reason for working in Outline view rather than in Print Layout or
Draft view is so that you can get a handle on the overall structure of your
documents. The secret is in collapsing a document’s outline so that the portions
of your document you’re not interested in are hidden.

The Outline Tools group includes a Show Level drop-down list that lets you
collapse or expand the entire outline to a specific heading level. For example,
if you want to see just the top two heading levels (paragraphs formatted
with the Heading 1 or Heading 2 style), select Level 2 in the Show Level dropdown list.

Here are some important features to note about working with collapsed text in Outline view:

• Some headings have fuzzy lines under them, to represent collapsed body text.
• Each heading in Outline view has a large plus sign or minus sign next to
  it. Headings with plus signs have other headings or body text subordinate
  to them. Headings with minus signs do not.
  You can double-click the plus and minus signs to show and hide text.
• If you’re good with keyboard shortcuts, keep in mind that pressing
  Alt+Shift+A quickly toggles between Show Level 9 and Show All Levels.
  This handy shortcut quickly shows or hides all body text in an outline.

Promoting and demoting paragraphs

To promote a paragraph means to move it up one level in the outline. If you
promote a Heading 2 heading, it becomes a Heading 1 heading. You do this
by placing the insertion point on the line you want to promote and clicking
the Promote button in the Outline Tools group on the Outlining tab on the
Ribbon. You can’t promote a Heading 1 paragraph; it’s already as high as it
can get. If you promote a body text paragraph, it becomes a heading paragraph
at the same level as the heading it is subordinate to. Thus, if you promote
a body text paragraph that follows a Heading 2, the body text paragraph becomes a Heading 2.

To demote a paragraph is to move the paragraph down one level in the outline.
You demote a paragraph by placing the insertion point on the line you
want to demote and clicking the Demote button in the Outline Tools group
on the Outlining tab on the Ribbon. If you demote a Heading 1 heading, it
becomes a Heading 2 heading. Demote the heading again, and it becomes
Heading 3. You cannot demote a body text paragraph, but you can demote
any heading to a body text paragraph.

Tip: You can drag and drop collapsed sections in Outline view to rearrange them.
The body text paragraphs that fall under the heading always go along for the
ride. You don’t need to worry about losing a heading’s body text.

Printing an outline

You can’t directly print an outline from Word. You can display the outline
onscreen, and it seems like it might print, but when you print it, the entire
document prints, not just the Outline view. (Here’s a clue: when you choose
File → Print and check out the preview, it shows the entire document.) That’s
because Word prints based on the document itself, not based on the view you are using.

Here’s a workaround: Generate a table of contents that includes all the heading
levels, and then print just the page(s) of the document that contain the TOC.