Titles and headings of content should convey as much information as possible about the text that follows to help readers locate information quickly.
Note
Title and heading style varies among content teams. The guidelines in this topic are widely used and can make it easier to share files across teams. However, if your team follows a different practice, use your team’s style consistently.
Use sentence-style capitalization for titles and for headings, regardless of level. For more information, see Capitalization.
In general, use imperative constructions in conceptual or informational topics for both the title and the headings. Describe what the user wants to do in the user’s language.
Microsoft style in titles and headings
Run programs and manage files
Find a file
Copy music to a CD
Not Microsoft style in titles and headings
To run programs and manage files
How to copy music to a CD
Microsoft style in procedure settings
To find a file
Not Microsoft style in procedure settings
Finding a file
Note
There is considerable variation across content teams in the heading style for procedural topics. If the differences are generally based on valid assessments of user needs, there is nothing wrong with them. Some content teams provide only an infinitive heading and the procedure, reasoning that the work the user is doing at the time provides the necessary context. Other teams use “how to” in headings to avoid ambiguity for localization. Still other teams use the imperative form of the verb in topic headings. Consult your project style sheet, and whatever you do, use one form consistently.
For material that does not describe a task, use a noun phrase, not a gerund phrase, a prepositional phrase, or a clause.
Microsoft style
Error messages and their meanings
Visual Basic controls
Accessory programs
Not Microsoft style
Understanding error messages and their meanings
About Visual Basic controls
Things that you can do with accessory programs
Because users usually act on one thing at a time, headings should use singular nouns if possible. It is all right to use plural nouns when the plural is obviously more suitable.
Microsoft style
Format a disk
Open a new document
Manage folders
Do not use ampersands (&) in headings unless you are specifically reflecting the user interface or the application programming interface.
Use italic type if it would be required in body text. For example, use italic type for variable names. Follow the capitalization of any case-sensitive terms, even if the capitalization conflicts with the guidance for heading style.
Microsoft style
Dereference the pszIUnknown pointer
Not Microsoft style
Dereference the pszIUnknown pointer
Dereference the PszIUnknown Pointer
In the first sentence following any heading, do not assume that the reader has read the heading.
Microsoft style
Find information in Help
When you click Help on the menu bar, Help commands appear.
Not Microsoft style
Find information in Help
This is easy to do from the menu bar.
In printed content, avoid titles and headings of more than one line. If a title or heading must have two lines, try to make the first line longer than the second. For information about acceptable line breaks in headings, see Line breaks.
For additional considerations for titling webpages, see Help users find your content (Chapter 2).
Headings help orient users and make content easier to scan. First-level headings usually apply to the most general material, and subsequent–level headings deal with more specific topics.
Follow these organizational guidelines:
Ensure that all headings at the same level are grammatically parallel.
When dividing a section, try to make the material fall under at least two subheadings. It is all right to have only one subsection within a section, but only if other methods, such as restructuring the section, will not convey the meaning as well.
In general, do not have two headings in a row without intervening text. However, avoid inserting “filler” text just to adhere to this rule. The intervening text should help the user decide whether what follows will be of interest. For example, a description of a user problem that the content will help solve can save the time of users who have a different problem. However, intervening text that seems perfunctory or lacking in content can indicate that restructuring is in order.
Microsoft style
System Requirements
The following system requirements include software, hardware, network, and storage requirements for a quick migration scenario.
Software Requirements
Following are the software requirements for…
System Requirements
Software Requirements
Following are the software requirements for…
For information about page breaks with headings, see Page breaks. For additional information, see Capitalization, Help users find your content (Chapter 2), Line breaks, Lists, Tables.