Document Structure

Headings—when created properly—benefit all learners to indicate logical structure, create connections between key concepts, provide an overview of information, and act as navigational waypoints to chunk information and increase readability. However, headings are not created by changing the font formatting with larger or bold text alone. In Word, Headings must be created using Styles.

Who headings affect

Readers tend to skim through documents to gain an overview or find a specific section. Users who cannot see the document or have difficulty reading it can use assistive technology to browse in a similar way, provided a document has properly crafted headings.

If a document has no headings, or improperly created headings, users of assistive technology have to read line-by-line through the whole document to get to a specific point, instead of using headings to move to the section they need. Additionally, all users have no sense of overview, connections between topics, or hierarchy of information.

How to fix missing headings

The Word Accessibility Assistant will flag No headings in document if a document over 10 pages does not have any headings. 10 pages is an arbitrary choice by Microsoft and headings should be included in any length of document that has distinct sections.

Create headings or apply heading styles to existing text by moving to the Home tab and using the Styles gallery to set headings.

Note, the Word Accessibility Assistant does not check for proper use of headings and the appearance of a single heading, regardless of document length, satisfies the checker. To review heading structure in your document, go to View and check the Navigation Pane checkbox.

The Navigation Pane will open on the left side of the document window. If you think you can see headings in your document, but the Headings list is empty, the document does not have headings.

Headings are displayed to indicate the nested hierarchy of headings in the document. Selecting a heading in the Headings list will take users to that place in the document. Headings can be reordered in the Navigation pane to move the heading and all nested content.

The appearance of headings can be customized to fit an aesthetic theme, colour scheme, or brand guidelines.

A properly created heading structure can be automatically converted to a table of contents for the document.

How to prevent it next time

On the Home tab use the Styles gallery to set headings.

Existing text can be made into a heading by highlighting the text and selecting a heading level or a heading level can be chosen before starting a new line of content.

Structure headings with a heading level 1 as the broadest, most important level, such as a title.

Use heading level 2 for major sections under heading level 1.

Use heading level 3 for subsections under preceding heading level 2.

Use heading level 4 for subsections under preceding heading level 3.

Create a nested, sequential heading structure in which each nested heading contains related information. Increase by one heading level at a time without skipping a level. Any type of content can follow any heading level.

Brief but descriptive headings help all users navigate quickly to information they need, understand the purpose of various sections, and break up large blocks of text to increase readability.