Word headings and styles

Headings make text stand out and help people scan your document.

The simplest way to add headings is with heading styles. Using heading styles means you can also quickly build a table of contents, reorganize your document, and reformat its design without having to manually change each heading’s text.

1. Select the text you want to use as a heading.

2. On the Home tab, move the pointer over different headings in the Styles gallery. Notice as you pause over each style, your text will change so you can see how it will look in your document. Click the heading style you want to use.

   

   If you don’t see the style that you want, click the More button to expand the gallery.

Tip: You can change the font and formatting of a heading style. Just select the heading text you want to customize, modify its styles the way you want, and then on the Home tab, in the Styles group, right-click the heading style that you customized and click Update Heading to Match Selection. Every time you apply that heading style in your document, the heading style will include your customizations.

Styles can do a lot more, including a table of contents. Here’s a short video on why to write first and format later using Styles.

Headings can make text stand out and help people scan your document. The simplest way to add headings is to use heading styles.

1. Select the text you want to use as a heading.

2. On the Home tab, click the heading style you want to use.

   

   If you don’t see the style you want, click a left, right, or down arrow to see more available styles.

Apply and Customize Headings in Word Documents

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated April 19, 2022

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 or 365 (Windows)

You can create headings in Microsoft Word documents by applying Word’s built-in heading styles (such as Heading 1 or Heading 2). After you have applied styles, you can modify them and change the font, size, color, and other formatting attributes so the entire document will update. Once you have applied heading styles, you’ll be able to navigate to the headings using the Navigation Pane and create a table of contents.

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Heading styles are very important because they create structure in your documents and are readable by screen readers or assistive technology programs used by people with vision impairments. They can also save you a lot of time formatting and reformatting documents.

In addition to creating structure, heading styles are also used to:

• Generate a table of contents
• Reformat a document using Style Sets
• Navigate using the Navigation Pane (select Navigation Pane on the View tab in the Ribbon)
• Rearrange a document using the Outline View
• Create a structured PDF (portable document format) file with heading tags

Note: Screenshots in this article are from Word 365 but are very similar in previous versions of Word.

Creating headings by applying Word heading styles

To create or designate headings, you will need to apply the built-in heading styles in order (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and so) to paragraphs. There are 9 levels of headings available in Word.

Heading styles are technically available as paragraph and character styles, but it’s important to apply them as paragraph styles to entire paragraphs. A paragraph in Word is anything with a hard return after it (you have pressed Return or Enter).

Heading styles are affected by your theme choices (overall theme, color theme, and font theme). You can change theme options using the Design tab in the Ribbon.

To create headings by applying heading styles:

1. Click in the paragraph (title or subheading) you want to designate or format as a heading.
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
3. Click the heading style you want in the Styles Gallery (such as Heading 1) in the Style group. You may need to click the More arrow on the bottom right of the Styles Gallery to view more styles and then click the style you want to use.

All available heading styles do not appear initially in the Styles Gallery. When you apply a heading level (such as Heading 3), an additional heading level should appear in the Gallery (such as Heading 4).

The Styles Gallery appears on the Home tab in the Ribbon and typically displays top level headings:

If you click the More arrow on the bottom right of the Styles Gallery, an expanded gallery appears:

Modifying or customizing heading styles using the Styles task pane

If you modify heading styles, every instance of the modified style will change in your document. Not only will this save time, but it will also ensure consistency. There are many ways to customize heading styles in Word. In this article, we will modify heading styles using the Styles task pane.

The Styles task pane appears with styles in the document (you can change this display by clicking Options at the bottom of the task pane):

To modify or customize a heading style:

1. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
2. Click the dialog box launcher (diagonal arrow) on the bottom right in the Styles group. You can also press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S. The Styles task pane will appear. If the task pane is floating, double-click the title bar.
3. Click in a paragraph using the style you want to modify.
4. Click the arrow to the right of the heading you want to modify in the Styles task pane and then select Modify from the drop-down menu. You can also right-click the heading style in the task pane and select Modify. A dialog box appears.
5. In the Modify Style dialog box, select the desired options such as font, font size, font color, alignment, and line spacing. Buttons in this dialog box are comparable to those in the Ribbon.
6. If you want to change some other formatting options (such as paragraph formats), select Format at the bottom of the dialog box and select other options from the drop-down menu.
7. Select Only in this document so that the style is modified in the current document only.
8. Do not select Automatically Update unless you want the document styles to update when a user changes heading formatting in the document. It’s typically best to leave this option unchecked.
9. Click OK or press Enter. The entire document will change unless a heading has been manually formatted (which overrides the style). You can simply reapply the style if this occurs.

The Modify Styles dialog box displays the style name, the type of style and options for modifying the style:

When you save the document, the modified styles are also saved.

Styles are the most important formatting feature in Word to automate formatting in longer documents. Heading styles also have the added benefit of creating structured documents and are integrated with several other Word features such as generated tables of contents.

This article was first published on May 15, 2021 and has been updated for clarity and content.

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More resources

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Style is essential to making a strong first impression. Admittedly, this usually applies to fashion rather than formatting. But in the academic realm, you’ll win more points for applying clear and consistent heading styles in a document than for wearing a fancy outfit.

And since a well-formatted document is vital for clarity as well as grabbing the reader’s attention, today we’re taking a look at how to apply heading styles in Microsoft Word.

Using Headings

The ‘Headings’ styles in Microsoft Word are formatting options for making headings and subheadings stand out from the other text in your essay. This will help your reader, particularly in longer essays, by clearly indicating where different sections begin and end.

Microsoft Word actually comes with a number of default heading styles (named ‘Heading 1’ through to ‘Heading 9’). You can use these as you find them, but you may also need to change them to fit with any specific requirements for headings set out in your style guide.

But how should you use these headings? Like so:

1. Go to the ‘Styles’ section of the ‘Home’ tab on the main ribbon
2. Select the text you’re using as a heading and click on the appropriate ‘Heading’ style (e.g. ‘Heading 1’, ‘Heading 2’, etc.)
3. If the required style is not visible in the ‘Styles’ tab, click the little arrow in the bottom right to open a side menu with further options
4. If the required ‘Style’ still isn’t visible, click ‘Options…’ in the side menu and make sure ‘All styles’ is selected under ‘Select Styles to Show’, then click OK
5. Once the correct heading styles show in the menu, select the text you want to format and apply each heading and subheading accordinglyBe sure to use different styles to distinguish between different ‘levels’ of heading, since the formatting style of chapter titles should be distinct from those used for section or subsection headings: e.g. use ‘Heading 1’ for the main headings, then ‘Heading 2’ for the next level down, and ‘Heading 3’ for subsections, etc., being careful to apply each style consistently.

Numbered Headings

If you want to use numbered headings, Microsoft Word’s multilevel list options are very useful. This will apply numbering to titles and subtitles whenever a ‘Heading’ style is used, thereby ensuring clear and consistent numbering for all headings in your document.
To do this, you’ll need to:

1. Apply different heading styles to your document for each level of heading
2. Click on the ‘Multilevel List’ button in the ‘Paragraph’ section of the ‘Home’ tab
3. Select one of the list styles that refers to headings

This will apply a different numbering level to each heading style, while you can also modify and create multilevel list styles via the ‘Multilevel List’ menu.

This numbering will also update automatically if you add or remove headings, saving you the effort of re-numbering headings manually.

What is a great feature in Word documents is that all document-related heading styles are pre-built in them. These can be customized according to your needs.

Not only you can use built-in styles such as headings, captions, subtitles, annotations, indentation, etc., but you can also quickly clear heading styles if you don’t want.

If existing (built-in) styles do not fit your content need, you can create the new styles you want to apply.

Getting Started with Creating and Applying Heading Styles

Normal Style:

It clears all the selected content formatting, such as headings, titles, subtitles, and so on, that you have applied and resets it to the default font style.

No Spacing Styles:

With the no spacing style, all the spaces between the selected paragraphs will be removed automatically.

You could also use your word processor’s “find and replace” feature to quickly get rid of the extra spaces. Finally, you could use a text editor to manually delete the extra spaces.

Heading 1, 2, 3… Styles:

You can select the Heading style that fits the content best. Heading 1 is usually used for the main title of the document, Heading 2 for its subheadings, Heading 3 for its subsections, and so on.

Title Style:

When it comes to naming a document, composition, or book with a title style, it is best to choose a name that accurately and succinctly describes the contents. This can make it easier to find the document, book, or composition when you need it.

Subtitle Style:

A document, book, or piece of writing might benefit greatly from having an extra title in the form of a sub-title, which is a second title that provides a description of the work’s subject matter that is more accurate.

It can help to clarify your topic and make it easier for readers to find the information they need. Additionally, a sub-title can also help to make your work more memorable and impactful.

Consider how you can use a sub-title to make your work stand out from the crowd!

Subtitle Emphasis Style:

It uses an italicized font and a style to show your suggested new title for the document, book, or other piece of writing that best describes it.

Emphasis Style of Heading:

You may format the content of the document however you wish by applying a style that includes bold and italicized fonts.

Intense Emphasis Style:

You may make any part of the text in the document that you wish to stand out by applying a font that is bold and italicized, as well as a unique color and style, to it.

Strong Style:

The text in the document will be formatted using the bold font in the areas that you specify.

Quote Style:

In a Word processing program, the text of a document can be made to look like a quote by using the quotation style. This may require using quotation marks or special formatting for quoted material.

Also, you might have to change the line spacing, font size and type, and other formatting options to make sure the quote stands out from the rest of the text.

Intense Quote Style:

Intese quotation style, makes quotation with background colour formatting to the selected content of your document.

You can manually do this by selecting the text you want to change, then using the ‘Font’ group from the home tab by selecting a background colour and font style from the options available.

Subtle Reference Style:

Subtle reference will be made to one of the sources of information about the content. It can be a great way to enhance a reader’s understanding of a topic.

It can provide context, add depth to a conversation, or provide a unique perspective. It can also be a great way to keep the conversation interesting and engaging.

Intese Reference:

Intense Reference is one of the places to look for reliable information on the topic at hand in order to learn more about topics that are connected to it.

Book Title Style:

Apply it to the main name of the document or book on what it is.

List a Paragraph Style:

The listing paragraph is a paragraph containing different ideas that all connect to one main idea. It is perhaps easiest to think of this as the “First”, “Secondly”, or “Thirdly” paragraph.… The third is the compare and contrast paragraph in which you examine the relationship between two different ideas.

Customizing or Creating Your Own Headings in a Document:

Are the existing headings in Word doesn’t give you sense? Then format and create your own styles of the selected text such as Headings, Titles, Subtitles, Quotations, etc.

Steps in Creating Heading Styles in MS Word:

Clear Formatting (Ctrl+Spacebar):

It clears all the selected content formatting (such as heading, title, subtitle, and so on that you have applied) and resets it to the default font style. 

Steps in Clearing Formatting:

Keyboard Shortcut for Applying Headings (Ctrl+Shift+S):

To apply headings in Word by modifying the existing headings, titles, subtitles, etc. press Ctrl+Shift+S. Or follow the steps below.

Steps in applying Heading Levels in MS Word: