Working with headings in word

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.

Recommended article: How to Hide Comments in Word (or Display Them)

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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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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.

Asked by: Prof. Charity Kutch MD

Score: 4.5/5
(60 votes)

How to Create Headings Using Word’s Built-In Heading Styles

How do I navigate headings in Word?

To go to a page or a heading in a Word document without scrolling, use the Navigation pane. To open the Navigation pane, press Ctrl+F, or click View > Navigation Pane. If you’ve applied heading styles to the headings in the body of your document, those headings appear in the Navigation pane.

What are heading styles and how do I use them in Word?

Styles are sets of formatting options (like font, line spacing and alignment) that you can apply to text in one click. This is more efficient than applying each effect individually, and also increases consistency throughout your document. Word contains nine built-in Heading styles named Heading 1 through to Heading 9.

What is the difference between Heading 1 and Heading 2 in Word?

Usually, the topic heading at the top of your page will be Heading 1. The headings of sections within the document will have Heading 2 styles. … Next, give each section of the document a meaningful heading. Assign each of these a Heading 2 style.

How many headings does word have?

Word has nine built-in Heading styles. They are called Heading 1, Heading 2 etc. You can use other styles (including your own custom styles) for most heading and numbering purposes.

27 related questions found

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One of the key ways to make Microsoft Word documents accessible is to use Word’s built-in heading styles to format the document.

Why Use Headings

Accessible documents benefit everyone — not just those with disabilities! For example, accessible documents benefit cell phone and tablet users, as well as students with low bandwidth access. Accessible documents also make it easier for browsers to display them and are much easier to convert to various platforms or other formats.

Headings aren’t just a good idea — they’re required for accessibility. Microsoft Word provides pre-built heading styles to assist you.

Add Heading Styles in Word

Documents with a proper heading structure allow screen reader and other assistive technology users to:

• view a list of all of the headings on the page to navigate
• choose top-level headings or other heading levels and
• read or navigate a document by using headings.

Most of us scan a document or page quickly and look for big, bold text (headings) to get an idea of its structure and content. Screen readers and other assistive technologies also need to scan a document. They read and navigate through a document by using the heading structure.

To do this, documents should be structured in a hierarchical manner:

• Heading 1 is usually a page title or the main content heading. Generally, there is only one such header, and it is usually the most important.
• Heading 2 is usually a major section heading.
• Heading 3 is usually a sub-section of the Heading 2.
• Heading 4 is usually a sub-section of the Heading 3, and so on, ending with Heading 6.

Note:

• Lower-level headings should be contained within headings of the next highest heading.
• You should not skip heading levels, such as using Heading 4 directly below Heading 2.
• Headings should have descriptive text that give users a good idea of the content they will find within that section of the document.

Applying Heading Styles

1. Select the text to be styled with a heading.
2. Click the Home tab — see the heading styles listed in the Styles pane.

   

3. Click on the heading style you want to apply to the selected text.
4. To remove or change the heading style applied, highlight the text and select the Normal style, or a different heading style.

Verifying Your Headings

It is good practice to check that your headings create a logical outline for your content and verify that all of the headings are displayed in the headings list in the Navigation Pane.

Note: Instructions may vary when using Office versions older than Office 2019 or the Office 365 web versions, and/or Macintosh Office applications.

1. Click the View tab
2. Check the Navigation Pane option in the Show group (OR press Ctrl+F).

   

3. The Navigation pane opens on the left. Click Headings to display the headings hierarchically. The headings should be nested in a logical manner.
4. Click on a heading in the Navigation pane to move to specific parts of the document. 

Modifying Pre-Defined Heading Styles

You can modify a pre-defined style to change the visual display:

1. On the Home tab, right-click the style you wish to change in the Style pane and select Modify…
2. In the Modify Style pop-up window, you can change the font type, font size, formatting, spacing, color, etc.

   

3. Click the Format drop-down list in the bottom left corner to navigate through other style options.
4. Check Automatically Update in the bottom left corner so that any text with that style applied in your document is automatically updated.
5. Click OK — all text formatted with that heading style will change.

Note: Remember — there must be sufficient color contrast between the text and the background color to meet accessibility requirements.

Understand and Fix Color Contrast Issues

See Also:

• Blackboard Ally

One of the most known rules of word processing is making sure that your documents look presentable and pleasing to the eye. A well-formatted piece will always earn greater results than a huge, confusing block of text all using the same font and formatting. You can avoid publishing plain documents by making good use of headings and text styles in Word.

Headings help you create separation in your documents, allowing you to establish key points for your readers. Titles and sub-titles are the best use of applying a heading. Text styles tie into this, as they’re able to transform your entire document based on a pre-made style. If you already assigned headings, they get a new, unique look that makes them stand out from the body of your document.

In this guide, we’ll be learning how to add headings to your document, then format by using text styles in Microsoft Word.

Things you’ll need

• A device with Microsoft Word installed and activated.

Follow the step-by-step guides below and start the path to becoming a formatting guru!

How to Add Headings with Styles

The easiest way of adding headings in Word is by using heading styles. With one click, you can quickly format text and also add to the table of contents in your document. Headings allow you to reorganize your text and easily change the formatting of your document without having to do it manually.

1. Launch Word, then open an existing document or create a new one by using the buttons on the welcome screen.
2. By holding the left mouse button, select the text you want to make into a heading.
   
3. Choose the Home tab in the Ribbon located at the top of your Word screen.
   
4. You can see a section called Styles. This section is longer than any of the others and contains different headings.
   
5. As you hover over and of the headings, you can see a preview of how it will look like in your document, making it easier to make a choice. To select a heading, simply click on it.
   

How to use customize text styles

Using text styles is incredibly beneficial for any type of writer. Instead of having to format your document manually and dealing with the tedious work yourself, you can apply a text style that formats everything for you.

Now that we learned how to use text styles to quickly format headings, we can move on to using styles for different parts of your document. It’s also possible to customize a text style, allowing you to quickly transform the entire look of your file without the troublesome manual edits.

1. Click on the More button in the bottom-right of the Styles section. Again, you can find this section in the Home tab of the Ribbon on top of your screen.
   
2. You’ll see a new window pop up with all of the pre-made styles in Word. These include things like different formatting for emphasis, subtitles, quotes or references.
   
3. You can apply any of these styles by selecting text in your document and clicking on the style you want to use.
   
4. To modify an existing style, hover over the style with your mouse pointer and click on the arrow that appears. Now, select Modify from the drop-down menu.
   
5. Make the changes you want and click the Ok button.

Tip: You can even create your own styles by clicking the New Style icon. These custom made styles can be applied in any of your documents and can be edited at any given time just like pre-made styles!

We hope that this article was able to help you learn how you can add headings and use other text styles in Microsoft Word. Do you know someone who’s starting out with Word and other Microsoft Office products? Don’t forget to share this article with them! Your friends, classmates, colleagues or employees can all get help in getting started with Word. If you want to learn more about Word or other Microsoft Office suite applications, feel free to browse our section of guides.

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Alternatively, you can add numbering to the heading style to automate your work.

However, if you need to add multilevel numbering for the headings, you have to know some tricks on how to do that:

Add numbering to the heading style

All style changes, such as adding numbering to a heading style, are made in the Modify Style dialog box.

   1.   To open the Modify Style dialog, do one of the following:

• On the Home tab, in the Styles group, right-click on the style (for example, Heading 1) and choose Modify… in the popup menu:

  

• On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click the dialog box launcher:

  

  On the Styles pane, right-click on the style (for example, Heading 1) and choose Modify… in the popup menu:

  

• Right-click on the text with the needed style (for example, Heading 1) or some text you want to apply this style, then click the Styles list in the Mini Toolbar.

  In the Style gallery, right-click on the style and choose Modify… in the popup menu:

  

   2.   In the Modify Style dialog box, click the Format button and then choose Numbering…:

   3.   In the Numbering and Bullets dialog box, choose the numbering format you prefer, or click the Define New Number Format… button to create a custom numbering:

In the Define New Number Format dialog box:

• The Number style list specifies the numbering style: Arabic numerals; uppercase and lowercase Roman numerals; uppercase and lowercase alphabet letters; word series (1st, One, and First), etc. See examples in the Customizing numbered lists tip.
• The Font… button opens the standard Font dialog box that allows selecting the specific font or font attributes (such as bold, italic, and underline) and the point size for the numbers.
• The Number format field offers to type the characters you want to come before each number (if needed). For this example, the word Part:

  

• In the Alignment list, choose the distance from the left, centered, or right margin that Word places the number.

For example:

Add multilevel numbering to the heading style

To create a multilevel list for headings, do the following:

   1.   On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the Multilevel List button:

   2.   Do one of the following:

• To create a pre-defined multilevel list for headings, click the arrow next to the Multilevel List button and choose any of the pre-defined styles for headings:

  

• To create a custom multilevel list for headings, click the arrow next to the Multilevel List button and choose Define New Multilevel List…:

  

  In the Define new Multilevel list dialog box, click the More>> button in the lower-left corner:

Word displays an extra panel at the right of the dialog box, so you see the full dialog box:

To link this numbered list level to a particular style, select the style in the Link level to style drop-down list:

Make other changes for the custom list levels (see how to customize multilevel lists for more details).

For example:

After applying the heading styles:

• The Styles Gallery will look like this:

  
• You can see the numbered list for headings:

  

Note: To modify the numbering or numbering format, you need to modify this custom multilevel list (see how to customize the multilevel list), not the numbering in the heading style (like described in the Add numbering to the heading style).

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