Using heading styles

Styles allow you to easily apply consistent formatting to documents, as well as to quickly change existing formatting. In addition, the use of styles provides a structure to your document that can be discerned by a screen reader.

This page summarises the benefits of using heading styles within the documents you create and how you can do this through Google Docs and Word.

What are heading styles?

Heading styles are a way of formatting your text to make headings stand out from the body text.

It's not just making headings look good though! Heading styles also give your documents structure. This makes your documents easier to navigate around, and can save you a lot of time. They are also important to make your documents accessible to readers too.

What's not to like?

You might have seen the Styles bar in Microsoft Word before:

Of course, you can also use heading styles in Google Docs!

Why are heading styles useful?

Heading styles help you format your work easily and quickly:

you can consistently format headings and text - the same font, same text size etc., helping your work look more professional.
you can quickly update heading font, size or colour all at once instead of one-by-one.
your structure is clearer with easy to see headings.

Heading styles also give structure to your document, which lets you:

use the Outline view to jump to sections easily - no more scrolling through a long text!
create a Table of Contents in just a few clicks.
create documents that are more accessible and easier for readers to use.

This example shows heading styles used in a Google Doc, with the Outline view next to it.