Forum Discussion
Add style to headings sidebar
- Nov 28, 2025
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!
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.