How To Create An Outline In Word 2010

This tutorial shows how to create headings in Microsoft Word. More specifically, we'll look at how to create headings using Word's built-in styles. Then, we'll look at how to customize Word's built-in heading styles to your preferred font, font size, alignment, and color.

Quick Links:

• How to Create Headings Using Word's Built-In Heading Styles
• How to Customize Word's Built-In Heading Styles

Before jumping to the tutorial, let's discuss the importance of using Word's heading styles.

Why Are Heading Styles Important?

You can make any text in Word look like a heading by using a large font size. However, you won't have access to several important features if you use a large font size rather than Word's official heading styles. For example, Word's heading styles help you perform the following tasks:

• Create an automatic or custom table of contents
• Create bookmarks in a PDF using Adobe Acrobat
• Use Word's outline feature
• Use Word's Navigation pane

Most importantly, screen reading software can identify your heading hierarchy based on Word's styles. If you only use a large font size for headings, people with vision impairment who use screen readers will have less information about how your document is organized.*

This tutorial is also available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.

Watch more than 100 other writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel.

The images below are from Word for Microsoft 365. The steps are the same in Word 2021, Word 2019 and Word 2016 and similar in Word 2013 and Word 2010.

How to Create Headings Using Word's Built-In Heading Styles

The following steps show how to create headings using Word's built-in styles. The next section explains how to customize the built-in heading styles.

1. Select the Home tab in the ribbon.

Figure 1. Home tab

2. Select the text you want to turn into a heading. (Or, move your cursor to a blank line where you want to type your new heading during the next step.)

Figure 2. Text selected to be formatted with a heading style

3. Select the appropriate heading level in the Styles group. (If you didn't select existing text during step 2, type your new heading text after making your selection.)

Figure 3. Styles group

Pro Tip: Word includes nine heading levels, although only a few will appear in your Styles group when you open a new document. Additional heading levels will appear after you use higher-level headings. For example, Heading 4 will appear after you use Heading 3.

The selected text will be formatted with the new heading style immediately.

Figure 4. Text formatted with Heading 1 style

4. Press Enter on your keyboard to move your cursor to the next line. The heading formatting will automatically turn off.

5. Save your file to save your new heading.

How to Customize Word's Built-In Heading Styles

The following steps show how to customize the built-in heading styles in an individual Word document.

There are many ways to change styles in Word. For the purpose of this tutorial, we'll stick with the basics: font, font size, emphasis (i.e., bold, italic, or underlined), color, alignment, spacing, and indentation.

1. Select the Home tab in the ribbon (see figure 1).

2. Select the Styles dialog box launcher to open the Styles pane.

Figure 5. Styles group dialog box launcher

Pro Tip: You can also use the keyboard shortcut Alt + Ctrl + Shift + S to open the Styles pane.

3. Select the menu arrow to the right of the heading you want to customize.

Figure 6. Heading 2 menu arrow in the Styles pane

4. Select Modify from the drop-down menu.

Figure 7. Modify option in the Styles pane

5. Make all necessary formatting changes in the Modify Style dialog box. Here are the eight basic modifications:

1. 1. Font
   2. Font size
   3. Emphasis
   4. Font color
   5. Alignment
   6. Line spacing
   7. Spacing before and after
   8. Indentation

Figure 8. Modify Style dialog box formatting

6. Select Only in this document to ensure that your customized style is limited to your current document.

Figure 9. "Only in this document" option in the Modify Style dialog box

7. Ensure that Automatically Update is not checked. (If Automatically Update is checked, you won't be able to edit the styles of individual same-level headings.)

Figure 10. Unchecked "Automatically update" option in the Modify Style dialog box

8. Select the OK button to save your changes. The Modify Style dialog box will close automatically.

Figure 11. Modify Style dialog box OK button

Your changes will be applied to all existing text using the heading style you just customized.

9. Save your file to save your changes.

Related Resources

What Is Headline-Style Capitalization?

How to Capitalize Hyphenated Words in Titles and Headings

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*Visit "Make Your Word Documents Accessible to People with Disabilities" from the Microsoft Office Support website for an in-depth list of ways to make your document accessible to the widest audience.

Updated October 19, 2021

How To Create An Outline In Word 2010

Source: https://erinwrightwriting.com/how-to-create-and-customize-headings-in-microsoft-word/

Posted by: schroederfrossuche.blogspot.com

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