What

Headings are used to structure and organise content on document like this one. They act as signposts, guiding the users through the content. Headings if you imagine, correctly used act like stepping stones across a pond.

Headings in a document can also be internally linked again helping navigation and userbility.

Headings are defined using the following html tags <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> tags, where <h1> represents the most important heading and <h6> represents the least important heading. Headers talk back the heading element as an announcement so “heading level 1”.

Why

Headings provide a clear hierarchy of information and help the user to quickly build a picture of the content, speeding up the navigation.

How

Headings in Microsoft Word are controlled in the “Styles Pane”. The Styles Pane is a way of applying formatting to text. It can be located on the Home tab. When clicked it opens up a series of white boxes with the subheading “Styles." Each white box represents a different formatting option for various elements of text such as heading, plain text etc.

screen shot showing all elements

Here is the panel but only showing those elements in use in this document.

screen shot showing elements in use only

Headings in this document are listed as:

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5
Heading 6


When applied the headings in this document are formatted look like this:

Main Heading – h1
Secondary Heading – h2

Subheading – h3

Sub-subheading - h4

Sub-sub-subheading - h5
Least Important Heading - h6


The Styles Panel

SCREEN SHOT BEING USED AS DECORATION

The default Styles Pane has all the text formatting options. The second pane just shows the styles in use.

Formatting and style options

From this panel you set all your styles.

Font sizes

Headings should be different font sizes in descending order from h1 down to h6, although h5 and h6 are rarely used. In this document they are as follows:

h1 – 36 pt

h2 – 28 pt

h3 – 26 pt

h4 – 24 pt

h5 – 20 pt
h6 – 18 pt

Body text – 14 pt

Heading sizes, font sizes and font families are delt with in other self-help articles.

Here are some tips for using headings in Microsoft Word

  • Use headings sparingly
  • Only use headings for the most important sections of your content.
  • Use the correct heading level
  • Use <h1> for the main heading, <h2> for secondary headings, and so on.
  • Think about a book, The main title would be a heading 1 and a chapter would be heading 2 and so on.
  • Use descriptive headings
  • The heading should accurately reflect the content of the section.
  • This helps users understanding what the section might be about.
  • This also help search engines better crawl a website.
  • Use consistent heading styles
  • Use the same style for all headings of the same level.

Save the document as an accessible pdf

  • File tab - Home
  • Select from the drop down menu - Save a Copy
  • Select file format – PDF
  • Choose option – Best for electronic distribution and accessibility
  • Select where you want to save the pdf
  • You can find the setting as follows;
  • Click on – Review
  • Double click on – Check Accessibility icon
  • A panel will open called Accessibility where you can find a report

screen shot show accessibility checker