Headings divide a page into sections with titles, the way chapters and sections divide a book. They let a reader skim the page and jump to the part they need. They also do more than look big: a table of contents lists them, and every heading can be linked to directly.

Tesria has six levels, from Heading 1, the largest, to Heading 6, the smallest. Use them like an outline: a Heading 3 belongs to the Heading 2 above it.

Insert it

Type the command at the start of an empty line, press Enter, and type the heading. Typed after a space at the end of a line you have already written, it turns that whole line into a heading. /heading lists all six.

• Markdown: type # and a space at the start of a line for Heading 1, ## for Heading 2, and so on up to ###### for Heading 6.

• The style menu at the left of the toolbar (Aa Style on a phone).

• Keyboard: Ctrl+Alt+1 to Ctrl+Alt+6 (⌘+Option+1 to 6 on a Mac). Pressing the same shortcut again turns the heading back into normal text.

Headings are not in the + menu, which is for inserting elements; the style menu is where they live.

The six levels, and when to use each

Here are all six, as they look on a page. Choose a level by where the section sits in the outline, never by the size you would like: readers, and the table of contents, take a smaller heading to be part of the bigger one above it.

Heading 1

The largest. The page title already sits above everything in large type, so many pages need no Heading 1 at all. Use it on a long page with a few major parts, such as Before you start, Your first day and Your first month in an onboarding guide.

Heading 2

The workhorse: the sections of an ordinary page, such as Background, What we decided and Next steps. This page uses Heading 2 for its own sections.

Heading 3

Parts of a section. Under Setting up your laptop, for example: Email, Chat and VPN. The numbered steps on this site are Heading 3.

Heading 4

A detail within a part, such as On a Mac and On Windows under VPN. If you reach for it often, the page may be holding too much: think about splitting it into pages of its own.

Heading 5

Rarely needed. Reference material with a deep structure, such as a policy with numbered clauses inside clauses.

Heading 6

The smallest, only a little larger than body text. It is there so that deep outlines, often brought in from other tools, keep every level.

Headings can be aligned and indented like normal text: see Normal text.

Linking to a heading

Every heading has an address of its own, made from its words: lowercase, with hyphens for the spaces. A heading called Before you start is at the page’s address followed by #before-you-start. Tesria makes these for you and keeps them unique: a second heading with the same words gets -2 on the end, a third -3, and so on.

• On the same page: add a link (Ctrl+K) and choose the heading from Headings on this page in the dialog. For example, this link goes to Heading 3 above.

• On another page: copy that page’s address and add # and the heading’s address to the end. Whoever opens it lands on that section.

• All of them at once: a Table of contents lists every heading on the page as a link, and keeps up as the page changes.

Changing and removing a heading

To change a heading’s level, put the cursor in it and choose another level from the style menu, type another command such as /h3 after a space at the end of it, or press that level’s shortcut. To make it ordinary text again, choose Normal text, press Ctrl+Alt+0, or press its own level’s shortcut a second time. The words stay as they are.

Good practice

• Do not skip levels. After a Heading 2 comes a Heading 3, not a Heading 5. People using screen readers move around a page by its headings, and a gap makes them wonder what they missed.

• Make them specific. Refunds for annual plans tells a skimmer whether to stop; More information does not.

• Keep them short, a few words, with no full stop at the end.

• Do not use a heading to make text big. For a line that needs attention, use a panel.

Related elements

• Table of contents lists the page’s headings as links.

• Link can point at any heading, on this page or another.

• Expand hides a section behind its title until a reader opens it.