12.5 A cleaner outline view

Some people find it noisy and distracting that the Org-mode headlines are starting with a potentially large number of stars. For example the tree from Headlines:

     * Top level headline
     ** Second level
     *** 3rd level
         some text
     *** 3rd level
         more text
     * Another top level headline

Unfortunately this is deeply ingrained into the code of Org-mode and cannot be easily changed. You can, however, modify the display in such a way that all leading stars become invisible and the outline more easy to read. To do this, customize the variable org-hide-leading-stars like this:

     (setq org-hide-leading-stars t)

or change this on a per-file basis with one of the lines (anywhere in the buffer)

     #+STARTUP: showstars
     #+STARTUP: hidestars

Press C-c C-c with the cursor in a `STARTUP' line to activate the modifications.

With stars hidden, the tree becomes:

     * Top level headline
      * Second level
       * 3rd level
         some text
       * 3rd level
         more text
     * Another top level headline

Note that the leading stars are not truly replaced by whitespace, they are only fontified with the face org-hide that uses the background color as font color. If you are not using either white or black background, you may have to customize this face to get the wanted effect. Another possibility is to set this font such that the extra stars are almost invisible, for example using the color grey90 on a white background.

Things become cleaner still if you skip all the even levels and use only odd levels 1, 3, 5..., effectively adding two stars to go from one outline level to the next:

     * Top level headline
       * Second level
         * 3rd level
           some text
         * 3rd level
           more text
     * Another top level headline

In order to make the structure editing and export commands handle this convention correctly, use

     (setq org-odd-levels-only t)

or set this on a per-file basis with one of the following lines (don't forget to press C-c C-c with the cursor in the startup line to activate changes immediately).

     #+STARTUP: odd
     #+STARTUP: oddeven

You can convert an Org-mode file from single-star-per-level to the double-star-per-level convention with M-x org-convert-to-odd-levels RET in that file. The reverse operation is M-x org-convert-to-oddeven-levels.