Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Stepping Through Head Formats.

Stepping Through Head Formats

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 1, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

If you have a document that you want to format, you may not know exactly which type of heading you want to apply to your text. Word provides several different levels of headings, each defined by styles Heading 1 through Heading 9. You can quickly apply heading styles in your document by remembering a couple of helpful keystrokes:

Position the insertion pointer in the paragraph you want to format as a heading.
Press Shift+Alt+Left Arrow. The paragraph is formatted as Heading 1.
Press Shift+Alt+Right Arrow. The paragraph is formatted as Heading 2.
Continue pressing Shift+Alt+Right Arrow. The paragraph formatting steps through the rest of the headings, up through Heading 9.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (988) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Stepping Through Head Formats.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Inserting a Paragraph from within a Macro

Macros are often used to process documents, resulting in changes of one manner or another. If you need your macro to add ...

Discover More

Determining a Value of a Cell

Cells can store all sorts of information that can be formatted and displayed in a myriad of ways. If you want to quickly ...

Discover More

Adding Footnotes to Endnotes

Word does footnotes. Word does endnotes. Word doesn't do footnotes within endnotes. Here's a discussion as to why and ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Vertical Alignment of Sections

Using one of the page setup options in Word, you can specify that the paragraphs within the section be vertically aligned ...

Discover More

Paragraph Formatting Shortcuts

Paragraphs are one of the elemental building blocks in a Word document. Formatting those paragraphs is easy to do if you ...

Discover More

Understanding Leading

Those with a publishing, typographic, or design background may understand what leading is, but not how to adjust the ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is five less than 6?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.