Understanding what ‘headings’ appear in different parts of Microsoft Word and the difference between Headings and Outline Levels
Microsoft talks about ‘Headings’ quite loosely and that can leave users confused about what’s appearing in various listings of a Word document structure.
We’ve talked about the difference between Heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2 etc) and the underlying Outline Level before. See When Word ‘Headings’ aren’t really headings and Word bug alert: Headings in Tables don’t always appear
Confusion continues because Word has various lists of ‘Headings’ that really show slightly different things.
For many people this doesn’t matter because they’ll only use Heading styles with in-built Outline Levels. However, the difference is crucial for more complex documents or documents converted from other formats.
Navigation Pane
The left-side pane is titled ‘Headings’ but really displays Outline Levels only.
Here’s an example. A paragraph with a custom style (‘NotaHeading’) but an Outline Level (marked OL3 for clarity) appears in the Headings part of the Navigation Pane.
Table of Contents
A Table of Contents shows both Headings and Outline Levels as the default but can be changed. That’s not clear from the main Table of Contents dialog. It talks about ‘Show levels’ meaning ‘Outline Levels’ not Headings.
The difference is only shown if you choose Table of Contents | Options. The automatic choices are to show Heading styles 1, 2 and 3 plus any Outline Levels.
Insert | Link in this document
The third list of Headings is Insert | Link | Place in this document (Ctrl + K) . This list shows Headings and Bookmarks – not other Outline Levels.
At least here the labelling is accurate. ‘Headings’ shows only Heading styles not other styles with Outline Levels.
When Word ‘Headings’ aren’t really headings
Word bug alert: Headings in Tables don’t always appear
Table of Contents basics in Word
Word links – Internal links via headings or bookmarks
Add shortcuts for all Word heading styles
