The Difference Between Headings and Titles in MS Word

In the dictionary, headings and titles have some common meanings--for example, either can be a chapter beginning or found at the top of a page. In Microsoft Word, these terms refer to specific formatting as applied in a document.

In Word, you can format text with characteristics such as font, font size, color and paragraph alignment. You can select each of these characteristics individually, or you can use a style. Styles apply all the formatting selections in a single click. Heading 1, Heading 2 and Title are all Word program style types.

Heading and title styles are used to section a document into chapters, paragraphs and topics. In Word 2007, the Heading 1 style uses a 14-point Cambria font in bold. The Title style is a 26-point Cambria font in bold and includes an underline separator. Using styles, such as title or heading selections, makes documents more accessible to screen readers, and styles translate to HTML-equivalent styles when converting a Word document to a web page.

You can find the headings styles in Word 2007 by clicking on the "Home" tab and clicking on any of the styles available in the "Styles" group, located toward the right edge of the Ribbon. To use a style, select your text and click the style of your choice. You can use the styles defined in the program, modify the current styles or create one of your own.