I'm constructing a long and somewhat complicated document, with lots of heading levels. I've decided that heading level 1 will be for chapter headings, and I have subheadings within those chapters. The thing is, I want the chapter headings in the text to look like this:

Chapter 1. (new line)
Introduction

(And note that each line needs to look different - i.e. it has a different style)



And then I want the subheadings to look like this:

1.1. Section A

So far, so good. I've got this all working by having two styles for the chapter headings:

Heading 1 is the one that says "Introduction", and it is driven by a list numbering thing. By default Word really wanted to put the heading number ("1") in front of the chapter title, so I stopped it doing this by setting the number font to white in the list outline settings, and then using a hanging indent and tab stop to have the text line up correctly. (This all felt like a dirty hack, but it worked!)

I have a second style ("Chapter Title") that I use to write the "Chapter 1." in manually, which is fine with me. This isn't linked to the heading levels or list in any way.

So with these settings, the text body is all great. The problem is, the TOC style also shows the number in white, which isn't what I want. I'd like the TOC to look like this:
1. Introduction......(page)
1.1. Section A.......(page)

or something like that (I'd be happy for it to say "Chapter 1. Introduction" if necessary).

I've tried editing the TOC 1 style to set the font to black, but it makes no difference.

If I manually select the TOC and set the font to black then it's all correct - but when I regenerate the TOC it loses this change, and then it's back to white.

I know this is a bit of a convoluted numbering and styling scheme, but if anyone has any suggestions I'd be very appreciative!

Thanks.

You can use Heading 1 for the "Chapter X" part and then a second, unnumbered style for the text of the heading. In the TOC, you omit Heading 1 and add your unnumbered style. Apply numbering to the TOC 1 style (which controls the formatting of level 1 entries in the table of contents).

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional