Forum Discussion
Add style to headings sidebar
I've made a style, put it in a custom TOC and want to navigate to it but it's not showing the navigation panel. I don't want to highjack an existing heading. Any ideas?
Thanks for raising this question. In Word, only paragraph styles that have an "outline level" of 1-9 will appear in the navigation pane and be included in the default table of contents. Most of the built-in Heading styles are hard-wired with outline levels, but custom styles default to "body text" with no outline level, so they don't show up.
To make your custom style appear in the navigation pane, modify the style and set its "Outline level" (in the Paragraph > Indents & Spacing dialog) to the appropriate level. Alternatively, you can base your style on a built-in Heading style or link it to a level of a multilevel list, which will automatically assign an outline level. Once you've done this, headings using your custom style will display in the navigation pane and can be navigated to just like built-in headings.
Hope that helps!
8 Replies
Thanks for raising this question. In Word, only paragraph styles that have an "outline level" of 1-9 will appear in the navigation pane and be included in the default table of contents. Most of the built-in Heading styles are hard-wired with outline levels, but custom styles default to "body text" with no outline level, so they don't show up.
To make your custom style appear in the navigation pane, modify the style and set its "Outline level" (in the Paragraph > Indents & Spacing dialog) to the appropriate level. Alternatively, you can base your style on a built-in Heading style or link it to a level of a multilevel list, which will automatically assign an outline level. Once you've done this, headings using your custom style will display in the navigation pane and can be navigated to just like built-in headings.
Hope that helps!
Thanks for this discussion – I had the same question about getting my custom styles to appear in the Navigation pane. From the replies I learned that Word only lists paragraphs with an outline level. To make a custom style show up, set an outline level in the Paragraph settings or base the style on one of the built‑in Heading styles. If you need unnumbered headings in a multilevel list, you can use one of the list levels and its associated heading style. Once the style has an outline level, it will appear in the Navigation pane and in the table of contents. I appreciate the helpful explanations and links!
"..." is not available in the original post. Not a big deal but definitely nice to have, Microsoft.
To edit a post, click on the ellipsis dots to the right of your title as shown in Doug's response.
Only paragraphs with outline levels show up in the Navigation pane. These need not be in your multilevel list but can be. A multilevel list can have both numbered and unnumbered levels. Depending on your TOC settings, such paragraphs may or may not show up in a Table of Contents. Styles attached to a multilevel list can have outline levels, or not.
Outline levels can be set in paragraph formatting, the outline levels of the built-in heading styles are hard-wired and cannot be changed. Another way to change outline levels is when in Outline view.
Do use Styles rather than direct formatting to set outline levels.
- Outlining - Use the Navigation Pane
- Numbering Levels and Outline Levels are not the same thing.
- Automatic Numbering in Word - my 5-page pdf
- Headings that do not show up in the Navigation Pane or in a Table of Contents (or in Cross-References / Hyperlinks)
- The Importance of Styles in Microsoft Word
- Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly
You're awesome! I set the outline level on the paragraph. Would this add the paragraphs to the built in TOC if that level was in the TOC (e.g., 1, 2, 3)? I already got that to work with a custom TOC.
It would add it to the default TOC. That uses outline levels 1-3 as well as heading styles, I believe. It is quite possible to have a TOC that does not use outline levels. You could set the TOC to use the heading styles but not the outline levels.
See: TOC Tips and Tricks by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
The above shows how to have styles but not outline levels in the TOC.
How do you edit posts? Want to add I've got a multilevel list managing headings; I need some headings not to be numbered; those are not in the multilevel list or nav pane.
Use one of the levels in the multilevel list and the related Heading # style for the un-numbered headings.
Re editing your post, if you click on the ellipsis at the top right of your post, you should see an Edit item, which is what I did here to add this to my initial response.
