Create Headings in Microsoft Word & Convert DOCX to PDF.

Create Bookmarks & Headings in Word document - ThumbnailOne of the main accessibility features that a document should have is bookmarks and headings, this makes a document or a piece of communication very easy to read and navigate. This feature is additionally helpful if you want to create the Table of Contents, if headings and bookmarks are done properly, it can even be especially helpful to auto-generate the Table of Contents with just a few clicks.
If you are like me and get annoyed by the poor or no navigation options to jump to a specific heading or a topic that you are interested in without reading every single word in the document, you landed on the right article.
In this article, I will demonstrate how you can properly set up your documents for a swift reading experience. Additionally, as a bonus, I'll show you the way to save your word documents as PDF while preserving the headings and bookmarks.
Read along and learn a new thing in Microsoft Word 365. You can ask any relevant questions, suggest a new topic for the future in the comment section below, or just share it with your friend who might be interested in learning this topic.
Ok, enough talk now let's get started.

Step 1: Create Bookmarks or Headings in Word.

Open Microsoft Word 365. It should open to a blank document, or you can also open an already created document.
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If you are starting with a blank document. You need some text content to create headings or bookmarks. For this demonstration, let's fill this document with a few paragraphs of random texts. Type “=rand(3,6)” and hit Enter to fill 3 separate paragraphs of 6 lines of text each.
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Now you have text in your document. It is a good practice to save the progress of your document periodically. Go to File > Save as > Browse. In the browse, window navigate to the location where you want to save this document and select the file type as default Word document DOCX or DOC and then click Save.
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Now let's assume these paragraphs are 3 different locations in your document and you want to create bookmarks or headings for those locations. Type the text for the headings, let's say Heading 1, Heading 2 & Heading 3.
Select the heading text, go to the “References” tab, and in the “Table of Contents” section click “Add Text”, from this dropdown define the level for this heading, you can define up to three levels of bookmarks or headings to be visible in a navigation panel.
A thing to understand here is that these three levels of headings or bookmarks are not by any means restrict you to create fewer headings in your document. These three levels are only making navigation of the document easy. With this has been said, complete defining levels of headings in correspondence with their levels in the document.
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Now to view the headings or bookmarks, go to the “View” tab on the ribbon, in this “Show” section, check the “Navigation” checkbox.
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From the left-hand side, a navigation panel should appear. In this panel, you can double-check the hierarchy of your headings.

Step 2: Convert Word document to PDF.

Saving your Word document in PDF format is very helpful and, in some cases, very crucial especially when sharing your work or piece of communication with a client or someone outside of your organization. The best feature that a PDF provides is that it preserves the contents of the document in the original state, it can also provide password protection to prevent unauthorized viewing, and additionally, a document saved in PDF provides high quality and fluid reading experience regardless of the size of the device it is viewed on.
To save your Word document created in Microsoft Word 365, you can follow these steps. Open your Word document, go to File > Save as > Browse. In the next browse window, go to the location where you want to save your document. Make sure to select the Save as Type to PDF.
Look for the button that says “Options” and click that button to add additional features like headings and bookmarks to your PDF. In the next window, define page range and other settings but most importantly turn on the bookmark and headings. Look for the “Create bookmarks using:” checkbox under “Include non-printing information”. Check the checkbox and select the “Heading” option and click OK. And then “Save” to save your document as a PDF.
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Have you noticed something amazing? This is how easy this is to make a piece of communication very easy to make the overall reading experience more enjoyable by using all the tools that are already available.

Author: Aamir Rizvi
Learn more about me here.

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