Here’s how to make a linked style with an outline level in Microsoft Word. Use this for many reasons like Table of Contents styles in Word.
The ‘outline level‘ is how Word knows what to put in the Table of Contents, Outline View and, mostly, Navigation Pane. Any Paragraph, Linked or Table style can have an Outline level.
Some people will tell you that the ‘Heading 1’, ‘Heading 2’ etc styles are somehow special and they are the only way to make a Table of Contents – that’s nonsense. All that matters are the outline levels set in the style or individual formatting in a paragraph, table or linked style plus individual paragraphs.
Create a new style:
Name – something obvious
Style Type – linked
Style Based on – most likely the style for the rest of the paragraph
Then choose the Format button | Paragraph and choose an outline level.
We’ve changed the look of the ‘heading’ style in the above example, mostly so it’s clear what we’ve done. But the ‘heading’ text can look the same as the other paragraph text. For example, this looks like three lines of plain text.
The ‘Apollo …’ start of each line is a different linked style with just an outline level change in the style from Normal.
Finding the Style Separator feature for Word TOC’s
Choose the words to show in a Word Table of Contents
Four tricks to shrink a Table of Contents in Word
Table of Contents basics in Word
