When I switch from Outline View to Normal View in Word 2000, the currently selected heading is not visible

Article contributed by Dave Rado

This problem was new to Word 2000; Word 97 behaved itself. I have heard that the problem may have been fixed in Service Pack 2, although I can't find any confirmation on the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

The workaround in Word 2000 is to press an arrow key on the keyboard after switching to Normal View, which brings the selection into view.

Alternatively, you can put the following macro into your Normal.dot file or into an Add-in – it automatically intercepts the ViewNormal command and fixes the bug.

Sub ViewNormal()
    ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdNormalView
    ActiveWindow.ScrollIntoView Selection.Range
End Sub

A similar problem, which seems to apply to all versions of Word, is that if you're in Outline View with your Headings collapsed, and have more headings than can be visible on screen at once; and if the first heading in the document is preceded by some other text (such as a cover sheet), then pressing Ctrl+Home doesn't bring the first heading into view – you have to follow up by pressing the right-arrow key; the reason, presumably, being that Ctrl+Home selects the first paragraph of the document, and as that can't be made visible with the headings collapsed, Word gives up the ghost. There doesn't seem to be a macro-based workaround for that one.