Whether you’re brainstorming, drafting, editing or printing, Microsoft Word’s document views give you a fresh perspective on your prose. Here’s how to tailor them to the task at hand.

To see your four layout options, click View in Word’s ribbon.

Outline view is ideal for brainstorming and organising ideas and notes with headers and subheads. Switch to Draft view to focus on text without the distractions of page breaks and margins.

When you’re ready to share your work, click Print Layout to preview and perfect how your document will look on paper or as a PDF. Use Web Layout to see how your text will look when exported to HTML.

Click Multiple Pages in the View ribbon to see how your text flows from page to page, or zoom all the way out for a bird’s-eye view.

To make editing longer documents easier, use the Split option to view and tweak two sections of a document simultaneously. Or use one half of the window to edit in Draft mode and devote the other half to a multipage view.

Word’s sidebar (View > Sidebar) makes navigating long documents a snap.

Choose the Navigation sidebar to see all the chapters, headers and subheads in your document, or select Thumbnail view for a list of pages; click any element or thumbnail to jump to that section.

The Reviewing sidebar is great for tracking changes: it lists every comment or proposed change; click one to jump to it in the document.

Switch to the Search sidebar to quickly find and replace text or to see a list of every occurrence of a word or text string.