Is it possible to have different styles for different sections?

[Teknogamer]

I have a document with two sections, and in each section I need the styles to be different. For example, in section 1 I need heading 1 to be left aligned while in section 2 I need it to be centered. I am using 3 levels of headings in both sections, but in the TOC I want only heading 1 and 2 to show up.
Is there anyway to make a different version of heading 1 for the second section of the document? I would have just used heading 4 - 6 for the second section of the document, but then I'll run into issues with the TOC.
Currently, the only way I could resolve this was none too elegant. In section 1 I used headings 1, 3, 5 and in section 2 I used 2, 4, and 6 and then I could have the TOC show 1 - 4.




I'd really like a better solution, thanks!

[Guessed]

Yes, you can make different styles with different attributes for use in different areas of the doc. These don't need to only use the built-in heading styles although there are benefits to using those rather than creating custom styles.

You can then specify the TOC in different ways to get to what you want. For instance, a TOC field code can include paragraphs based on outline levels and/or specific style names.
{TOC \o "1-4"} will include Heading 1 as TOC 1, Heading 2 as TOC 2 etc but this would also include any other styles that have their outline level set to 1, 2, 3, or 4. The TOC number will align with the outline level assigned to the trigger style.

{TOC \t "Heading 1,1,Head1,1,Heading 2,2,Head2,2"} will include 4 styles mapped to TOC 1 and 2 irrespective of the 'outline' level assigned to those styles.

[Teknogamer]

Thanks! I think I got the TOC part, where essentially I can assign whichever styles I want to TOC 1.
But regarding the different styles in different parts of the document, are you saying that I can have Heading 1 act differently in different sections? This doesn't seem possible...


Now, regarding what you said that there's benefits to using the built in styles. So, if I use three headings in each section and want them to have different attributes in each section, are you saying it's better to use Heading 1, 2 and 3 and then 4, 5 and 6 as opposed to making custom headings for the second section?

[Guessed]

You can't have Heading 1 act differently in different sections but you can use Heading 1 to create a NEW style so it starts with all the same attributes and then modify the settings you want for the new purpose. Since they share the same attributes, the outline level would be the same (unless that was one of the attributes you change).

I don't know what you want to do with your subsequent sections but you would want to use the built-in headings if you wanted for instance to have the page numbers include the Heading number and show that in the TOC. With a non-builtin-heading style you can add a styleref field into the footer to do a similar thing but that won't be included in the TOC page number. Also the built-in headings can include their numbers in captions (more easily) and the cross-refs list can show a 'heading' list which.

The problem with using 1,2,3 in the first section and then 4,5,6 in the second is that it restricts you to only three sections where you can do that (because you have used up your limit of 9 in total). Plus you can't easily add a 4th heading into section 1 because you wanted it for section 2. This can drastically reduce your flexibility which is rarely a good thing.

[Teknogamer]

Ahh got it, that sounds like a good resolution. So the outline level is an attribute, that can be shared by heading 1 and a custom heading based on 1. That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
And I definitely hear the point about flexibility, very true.

[Charles Kenyon]

Tips for Understanding Styles in Word by Shauna Kelly
Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly
Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word

[Teknogamer]

Wow amazing resources. I was actually looking for something like this and that really hits the spot, thank you.