The following guide highlights the process for adding heading styles and list styles to documents in CI Docs (Google Docs). These practices apply to any document you share with students or colleagues, including course materials, syllabi, assignment instructions, and shared notes.
Adding Heading Styles
To apply a heading style, select the text you want to format and choose a heading level from the Styles dropdown menu in the toolbar. It appears as “Normal text” by default.
You can also apply heading styles from the menu bar by going to Format > Paragraph styles and selecting the desired heading level.
Unlike Canvas, the document title in CI Docs sits outside the document body and is not automatically set as Heading 1. Begin your document with a Heading 1 for the main title or top-level section, then use Heading 2 and below for subsections.
Customizing Heading Styles
Once you have applied a heading style, you can change its appearance, font, size, color, and weight without losing its accessibility structure. Apply the heading style first, then format the text the way you want it to look. When you are satisfied, go to Format > Paragraph styles, hover over the heading level you changed, and select Update ‘Heading X’ to match. This applies your formatting to every instance of that heading level throughout the document.
If you want to reuse your customized styles in future documents, go to Format > Paragraph styles > Options > Save as my default styles. CI Docs will apply your saved styles automatically whenever you start a new document.
Heading Tips
- Keep headings concise. Think of headings as the main ideas and subheadings as the supporting details — short and simplified.
- Use headings to enhance, not replace. Headings should supplement the substance of your content, not take the place of your topic sentences.
- Do not skip heading levels. Move from Heading 2 to Heading 3, not from Heading 2 to Heading 4. Skipping levels disrupts screen reader navigation.
- Don’t overdo it. Not all paragraphs need a subheading. Only use headings if you have more than one point per heading level.
- Never use bold or font size alone to create visual headings. Text that is manually enlarged or bolded looks like a heading but is not recognized as one by screen readers or accessibility checkers.
Adding Lists
Lists should never be created manually using hyphens, asterisks, or typed numbers. Always use the built-in list styles available in CI Docs when creating lists.
To add a list, select the text you want to format and click the Bulleted list or Numbered list icon in the toolbar. You can also go to Format > Bullets & numbering to access additional list style options.
- Use numbered lists when items have a specific order, such as steps in a procedure or a ranked set of criteria.
- Use bulleted lists when items do not follow a hierarchy, such as a list of resources or a set of options.
Keep in mind that screen readers can detect ordered and unordered lists, but they do not distinguish levels of indentation. Some of the information a screen reader announces about a list includes:
- The size of the list
- The position of each item in the list
- When the reader has left one list and entered another
While it depends on the individual screen reader, the above points are the most common.
Checking Heading and List Structure with Grackle Docs
Grackle Docs is a CI-supported extension that checks the accessibility of your CI Docs documents. It will flag missing or skipped headings, improperly nested lists, table headings, and other structural issues, and help you fix them directly from the panel.
See Using Grackle Docs to Check Accessibility for setup and usage instructions.
