Headings and Styles

Use Headings and Styles

Headings are meant to be scanned, both visually and with assistive technology. Ideally, headings explain what a document section is about. Use the built-in heading styles and create descriptive heading texts to make it easier for screen reader users to determine the structure of the document and navigate the headings.

Apply built-in headings

Headings are often easiest to insert after the document is finished.

Select the text that will be made a heading and then choose the heading level from the Styles group on the Home tab. Do not worry whether the default heading style matches your document, you can change it later.

Be sure to organize headings in the prescribed logical order. Use Heading 1, Heading 2, and then Heading 3, rather than Heading 3, Heading 1, and then Heading 2. And, organize the information in your documents into small chunks. Ideally, each heading would include only a few paragraphs.

To change the format of the heading:

1. Select text formatted with a heading
2. Right click the corresponding heading button in the Styles group of the Home tab
3. Choose Modify from the drop down menu
4. In the dialog box that opens you can change the font, font size and color of this heading level. To change spacing, tabs, or add a border to the heading, select the Format button in the lower left corner of the dialog box
5. Changes to the headings will only be changed for the document you are working in unless you choose the radio button for “New document based on this template” in the Modify dialog box.

Or

1. Select the Design tab
2. Choose one of the preset document formats from the Document Formatting group