Chapter 3: Headings

Annissa Stout

Chapter 3: Headings

Main point

Using headings in your content allows students to easily navigate your website or book whether they are sighted or use a screen reader. You want your students spending more time understanding your content rather than spending their time trying to find the information they need to review.

Many people want to just edit the existing text in their document by changing the font size or making certain parts bold, however it’s a better idea to use the Heading styles as that will create an organizational structure. And to get the look you want, you can modify the Heading styles to be the font or size you want.

Use heading levels in a cascading order — don’t go from Heading 1 to Heading 4. Also, it’s best practice to only have one Heading 1 per chapter page. Pressbooks styles the chapter title as Heading 1 (on this page, Chapter 3: Headings is the Heading 1), so everything below that should ideally be Heading 2 or smaller. If you need to use multiple Heading 1s in a chapter for their accordion functionality, please note this for users in your Accessibility Statement. There’s currently no easy way to create accordion headings besides using multiple Heading 1s; Pressbooks is working on a possible solution.

Example

Heading 1 (chapter title)
- Heading 2
  - Heading 3
  - Heading 3
- Heading 2
  - Heading 3
    - Heading 4

WCAG Success Criteria

1.3.1 — Info and Relationships [Level A]: Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.
2.4.6 — Headings and Labels [Level AA]: Headings and labels describe topic or purpose.

How-to

Avoid editing the font format and use the built-in tools, either in Word or Pressbooks.

Word vs. Pressbooks:

In a typical Word document, best practices for accessibility call for only one Heading Level 1 (H1) per document. However, if you are writing your book in one Word file with the intention of importing into Pressbooks, you’ll need to make each chapter title a Heading 1 style. This will allow the import tool to recognize where to split the book and make new webpages.

Word

Navigate to the Styles options in the Home tab.
Select the text you want to edit and choose the appropriate Heading style.

Note: Although you can modify the format of the Heading styles, it’s better to edit the font appearance in Pressbooks.

Pressbooks

If your content is already in Pressbooks, open it up in the Visual editor.
Select the text you want to edit and select the dropdown box for paragraph types. Choose the appropriate heading type. Note that Pressbooks assigns Heading Level 1 to your chapter title. In the body of your chapter, start with Heading Level 2.