document a “Title” or “Heading 1” style, with no text in it
- Click “File > Save as…” and save the file as a “Word Template (.dotx)” file, in the default templates folder (on my computer, it’s “Documents / Custom Office Templates”). Give it a name you’ll recognize, like “Sean’s template” (replace that with your name, of course!) Don’t forget to change the type to “Word Template”:
To create a document using your new template, click “File > New” and you’ll see the template in the list on the right beside “Blank document”. Choose your new template and you’re good to go!
You can create custom templates for different kinds of projects you work on, and each one can have different styles.
What headings do I use?
When you’re new to headings, it’s hard to know which ones to use. The main thing is to be consistent, and to use headings in a way that shows the structure or hierarchy of the information in your document. Wright State University has a really helpful backgrounder on headings, and uses the following example:
- A Guide to the Babel Fish (Heading 1)
- What is a Babel Fish? (Heading 2)
- Physical Appearance (Heading 3)
- Decoding Mechanism (Heading 3)
- The Babel Fish in Philosophical Arguments (Heading 2)
- Oolon Colluphid’s Arguments (Heading 3)
- Argument for (Heading 4)
- Argument against (Heading 4)
- Agrajag’s Argument (Heading 3)
You can see how the headings are structured in a sensible, nested way. (You could think of a Christmas tree, or Babushka dolls, or a series of triangles – whatever metaphor works for you!) You wouldn’t have a Heading 2 “inside” of a Heading 3, for example.
Sometimes people tend to choose headings because of how they look – they want the particular font size or style associated with it. Don’t do that; think about the structure you want instead, use the headings that match that structure, and then change the font size or style of the headings to suit your needs using the steps above.
One of the big questions is whether your document should start with a “Title” or with a “Heading 1”. Here’s some quick rules of thumb:
- With webpages (or with documents that are meant to become webpages) it’s very straightforward: there should only be one single “Heading 1” on a webpage, so start with a Heading 1 and don’t use the “Title” style.
- With Word documents, if your document is short- or medium-length, start with a “Heading 1” as well and use “Heading 2s” and so on for each of your sections.
- If your Word document is a thesis, a long report, or a book with multiple chapters, you can start it with a “Title” and use “Heading 1s” for each chapter, for example.
In most everyday cases, though, I’d suggest starting with a “Heading 1” and not using the “Title” style. Remember, if you don’t like the font size or style that each of these use, you can easily customize them.
Overall, the important thing is to keep a consistent, nested structure, so if you use a Heading 1 to start off your document, don’t add other Heading 1s later in your document. Use Heading 2s to start each section, Heading 3s for any sub-sections, and so on.
If you’re writing a longer document and starting with a “Title”, then the same principle applies – there should only be one “Title” in your entire document, and each section or chapter would then start with a Heading 1.
Whichever one you use, the Heading 1 or Title that you start with becomes the top of the hierarchy (or top of the metaphorical Christmas tree), and everything else follows below it. It may sound complicated at first but you’ll get the hang of it fast.
Bonus: use paragraph spacing, not empty linebreaks
If you want to become a heading superstar – and do a huge favour to anyone turning your documents into webpages down the road – this last bonus tip is for you. It’s about normal paragraphs, as it turns out, not headings.
To create space between paragraphs, people normally just hit “Enter” twice to leave a blank space. The problem with that is that, if someone were to read your document with a screen reader, they’d keep being told about the blank lines – interrupting the flow 