Make use of the Headings to Navigate Around a Document

You’ve seen my other post about using headings (How to Add Headings to Google Docs), but do you know about the other use for them? Well how about easy navigation with headings!

A Quick Word about Headings

Just to be 100% clear, headings in both Google Docs and Microsoft Word are paragraph formatting styles.

They have been pre-created, so all you need to is apply them.

And when I say “them”, the word-processors supply a number of levels, from 1 down to 8 or 9.

Most of the time you’ll tend to use Headings 1, 2, 3 and occasionally 4 — that’s up to you.

Note: You can change the formatting to match your style.

Apply the Heading Style

Before you can navigate around your document, you have to apply the heading style.

Personally, I prefer to type in the text and then apply the style — just to that I know I’m applying it to the right text and place.

You can, if you prefer, apply the heading style, type in the text — in this case, you need to check that the following text is either a different heading style (e.g. the next number down) or returns back to the normal style.

Google Docs

Select the text.

From the toolbar, click the styles list.

Click on the heading level to apply.

Microsoft Word

Select the text.

Check that you’re viewing the Home tab on the Ribbon.

All of the Headings can be found in the Style Gallery to the right hand-side of the ribbon.

Depending on the size of your screen (both physical and display options) the number of styles that you can see will vary.

Note: If the window is small, then you’ll see ‘Styles’ instead of the gallery.

Click on the arrows to the right of the gallery to see more options.

MS Word normally shows 2 or 3 heading styles in the gallery, but there are additional levels available. (Accessing them is not part of this post.)

Navigation

Now that your headings are in place you can use them to navigate around your document.

Google Docs

In the top left of the main screen, is the ‘Show Document Outline’ button.

It’s automatically displayed as you start typing in any document.

Clicking on it expands the summary and outline.

It’s the outline that includes all of the headings within the document.

As you hover over one of your headings, the mouse cursor changes to the pointing hand.

Click on the heading to move to it within the document.

So the outline not only allows you to see the structure of your document, but also move around it.

Note: If you want to go to a part of the document that isn’t a heading, you’ll need to search for it to move there, or you can scroll up or down to find it.

Hopefully you’ve already guessed that you can keep clicking on a different heading to continue moving around the document.

This can be ready useful if you are using the pageless option. Take a look at my video to learn more about this option: Pageless document in Google Docs — how to do it

MS Word

Within Word, you need to display the Navigation Pane to be able to use the headings.

Like most Microsoft commands, there are a few different ways to display it.

Ribbon

The Navigation Pane can be found in the View tab, under the Show group.

Switch Pane

You can also ‘switch’ to the right pane (i.e. headings) when you search, or view pages in Word.

Click on the Headings option, instead of Pages (for page view) or Results (for search).

Navigation Pane in Word

Once the pane is displayed (whichever option you choose), you’ll see the headings from within the document.

If you haven’t already guessed (in case you didn’t read the Google part):

Click on the heading text (in the pane), and you’ll be moved to the corresponding part of the document.

To continue moving around the file, click on another heading.

Note: If you want to move to text that’s not a heading, you will need to use the search option.

Heading Navigation

For this option in both these programs, as you add more headings, or make any changes the Outline/Headings Navigation will update to match the document contents.

A side benefit is that you can see how the headings flow through the document, and make any changes (if needed).

Next Steps

Now that you know how easy navigation with headings really is, I hope that you’ll find them useful when you’re writing in Word or Google Docs.

It’s that time of the post, when I say “over to you” and you try it out the next time you are writing a document with headings.

Previously published on MichelleKTraining.co.uk as Easy Navigation with Headings in your Document