A slimmed-down outline can mean a lot to a woman (7)
I believe the answer is:
summary
'a slimmed-down outline can mean a lot' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'a woman' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'woman' could be 'mary' and 'mary' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'sum' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for summary that I've seen before include "Perfunctory" , "Synopsis, outline" , "Precis, gist" , "Abstract, short version" , "Arbitrary" .)