I am curious to why Heading styles are linked styles. Whats the purpose?
Why use heading as characters styles? (when applying heading style to part of the paragraph).

I virtually always disable linked styles. They cause problems, IMO.

You would apply a heading style to selected text if you wanted the same formatting. My advice would be to instead create a character style that matches it. This avoids confusion.
The built-in-heading styles when used as paragraph styles have special qualities which are not present when they are used as character styles.
Why use Microsoft Word’s built-in heading styles? by Shauna Kelly

If you would like instruction on how to set up some matching character styles, let me know.

At a guess, the built-in headings are linked styles only for the purpose of backward compatibility. Linked styles used the be the only way to include part of a paragraph in a table of contents (besides using TC fields of course). Nowadays, you can use a style separator instead.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Nowadays a linked style applied to text will not show up in a TOC.

Actually, linked styles still work as they used to, as long as you clear the option to "Disable linked styles" in the Styles pane.

Attached Images

LinkedStyles.JPG (24.7 KB, 20 views)

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Apparently, if the linked style is applied at the beginning of the paragraph it will show up in the TOC. If it is in the body of the paragraph, it will not.



I checked and while disable linked styles mattered for using the Style, once the style is applied you can disable linked styles and the style will still appear in a TOC.

I had only tested with the style in the middle of the paragraph previously. I will have to update my page. Character Style v Paragraph Style v Linked Style

I will keep them disabled!

Thanks for the additional testing, Charles.

I'll keep the "Disable linked styles" option selected as well. :-)

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

I note that the other "magic" characteristics of Heading Styles do not work when they are used for character formatting.
Why use Microsoft Word’s built-in heading styles? by Shauna Kelly
Use of a Style Separator, instead, would preserve these characteristics.