Headings in TDX knowledge base articles

NOTE: This information in general, excluding instructions for specific editors, applies to all university public documentation. 

Use headings in an article or service description to organize the information into sections for clarity and readability.

  • Use the Heading function (button) in the editor to create actual HTML headings. Don't use larger font sizes or bolding for headings.
  • The Article Subject field is the Heading 1 for the article, so the highest level used within the article should be Heading 2 with headings beneath those as Heading 3, and so on. Heading 1 should not be used in articles or service descriptions. 
  • Use headings in descending order, and don't skip levels.​
  • Put the most important information at the beginning of each heading so that it's visible if the title is truncated. 

Accessible Headings

Descriptive headings are important for ADA accessibility as they help to find specific content and become oriented in the page. The requirement for Level AA is that headings must describe the topic or purpose, but for Level AAA, section headings must be used to organize the content of the page. To ensure web accessibility, see W3C's pages on:

Pasting headings from Microsoft Word

If you use the correct heading in the draft in Word, it can be pasted into the article as the correct level heading. ​
Heading 1 = Heading in Word (do not use Heading 1/Heading in Word)​
Heading 2 = Heading 2 in Word​
Heading 3 = Heading 3 in Word

Use the Paste from Word button, and use either Ctrl/v or right-click, Paste.

Right-click, Paste as Plain Text will not paste formatting (including headings), but is handy when you are needing to paste only text. ​

If you have customized styles in Word, they may not copy over correctly.​

Create a heading in a knowledge base article or service description

In the TDX editor:

  1. Click into the heading text to place the cursor.
  2. Click the Paragraph Format dropdown (default displays "Normal").
    Editor toolbars with Paragraph Format dropdown default displaying "Normal"), and the heading levels that can be selected
  3. Select the heading level.

Click to place cursor; click Heading dropdown; select heading

Heading weight

Some parts of a knowledge base article are weighted more heavily for search, which means the search engine considers content in those sections more important and gives it greater influence when determining the relevance and ranking of results. Matches found in weighted sections are more likely to rank higher and be returned to users.

The Title/Subject, the main heading (Heading 1) in the article, is weighted at 10.

See Search Optimization for Knowledge Base Articles for more information about weighted fields.

Headings style guide

Microsoft Writing Style Guide: Headings

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