Headers

Headings Facilitate Navigation and Add Structure

Headings communicate the organization of the content on the page. Web browsers, plug-ins, and assistive technologies can use them to provide in-page navigation. Search Engines order the content of your page based on your headings.

Heading ranking

Headings should be organized according to their rank in numeric order. The most important heading has the highest rank header 1 or <h1> in code. The lowest ranked heading is header 6 or <h6> in code. There should only be one Header 1 per page, with all less important headings nested logically underneath it. If they are out of order, it is confusing to those using a screen reader. It is also an accessibility violation, which hurts search engine page, document, and site rankings.

Heading Hierarchy as HTML tags:
- <h1>Header 1</h1>
  <p>The most important heading, and can only appear once in a document</p>
  - <h2>Header 2<h2>
    - <h3>Header 3</h3>
      etcetera…
Headings Organize Your Text

Long documents should be organized into sections with headings that introduce them. Headings should indicate the organization of the content and facilitate the navigation of the content.

Use Headings to Convey Meaning and Structure

Headings should be used to group related paragraphs and content together while clearly describing the sections. A good heading will provide an indication of the content. Avoid using jargon or “insider” acronyms in headings.

Well-written headings help visitors understand what they should expect from the content of a web page and how that content is organized. Clear and descriptive headings allow users to find information easily and understand the relationships between sections of content. The headings do not need to be (and should not be) lengthy. Headings should provide cues to locate content and understand the structure of the content within the page. Read more about best practices for writing headings.

Adding Headings to Documents

Word Documents
PDF Documents
Excel Documents
Purchase College Website
Outlook Emails
Broadcast Emails

Headings in Word Documents in Microsoft Office Word

Apply a heading style
1. Type the text of your heading, and then select it.
2. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click the heading style that you want. If you don’t see the style that you want, click the More button to expand the Quick Styles gallery.
Add a heading - Word - Office Support - Office 365

Headings in PDFs in Adobe Acrobat Pro

Edit tags with the Tags panel

You can edit a tag title, change a tag location, or change the tag type for an element. All page content must be tagged, marked as an artifact, or removed from the logical structure tree.

Edit a tag title
- In the Tags panel, expand the section of the logical structure that you want to edit.
- To edit the title, Select the tag, choose Properties from the options menu, enter text in the Title box, and click Close.
Move a tag
1. In the Tags panel, expand the Tags root to view all tags.
2. Select the Tag icon of the element that you want to move.
3. Do one of the following:
  - Drag the tag to the location you want. As you drag, a line appears at viable locations.
  - Choose Cut from the options menu, and select the tag that appears above the location you want to paste the cut tag. From the options menu, choose Paste to move the tag to the same level as the selected tag. Or choose Paste Child to move the tag within the selected tag.
Change the element type
1. In the Tags panel, expand the section of the logical structure that you want to change.
2. Select an element and choose Properties from the options menu.
3. Choose a new element type from the Type menu, and then click Close.
Edit tags with the Tags panel - PDF - Adobe Acrobat Pro

Headings in Excel Documents in Microsoft Office Excel

Excel Documents only use a table based document structure and do not require heading tags. Tables do though require “table headings” which is covered on this site on the ************tables accessibility page**********.

Headings and Paragraphs on the Website
1. While editing the page, select the text you want to become a header or paragraph while.
2. Select the appropriate level header or paragraph in the style drop down list of the livewhale toolbar.
3. Styling will then be applied.

Headings in Emails in Outlook Emails

To Apply Headings:
1. Highlight the text chosen for the Heading. (To select text with the keyboard, place cursor at beginning of text, press and hold Ctrl+Shift and Right or Left Arrow to end of text to be highlighted).
2. Open the Styles Pane. (keyboard shortcut is ALT, O, FY).
3. Apply the appropriate Heading to the text in the main document. (Arrow up or down within Styles pane to find appropriate Heading).
4. To modify the heading styles, right click (Shift+F10) the style name.
Format e-mail messages with Quick Styles - Emails - Microsoft Outlook

Headings in Broadcast Emails

Heading support has not been added to the Broadcast Email template system design mode, but you can add the HTML tags for headings in the code view of the document.

In the body of your broadcast email:
1. Click on the html tab to see the code view
2. Add html header tags to the content of your email
3. Switch to preview or normal tabs to see how the content looks