Heading
A heading is a textual or semantic label that introduces a section of content and, when structured, indicates its level in the document hierarchy.
Writing for Developers: Blogs that get read
A short textual label that introduces and organizes a section of written or presented content.
- How it is used
- Guides readers through an article by dividing content into scannable, meaningful destinations.
- How deep it goes
- Explains purpose, wording, length, ordering, hierarchy, and revision checks, but stops short of discussing heading markup implementation.
- Examples
- Uses benchmark headings, a Zig and Postgres comparison table, and a clearly labeled fix for a Java debugging article.
- What you can do after
- Apply it by revising headings for reader intent, brevity, scan order, hierarchy, and fast access to solutions.
Read how Writing for Developers: Blogs that get read explains heading →
Build a Website with ChatGPT
An HTML heading element is an HTML element that marks a heading and expresses its level in the document's content hierarchy.
- How it is used
- Organizes personal home pages and articles into readable titles, major sections, and subsections.
- How deep it goes
- Defines three heading levels, names h1 through h3 tags, and gives practical size and editing guidance without advanced code internals.
- Examples
- Uses a personal homepage with work and fun sections and an article titled “Travel Guide to Narnia.”
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch by adding h3 titles inside section elements and editing h2 text without removing its tags.
Web Design Playground
A title or label that introduces a section of content, with level indicating rank in the document outline.
- How it is used
- Organize page titles, sections, and subsections into a readable visual hierarchy.
- How deep it goes
- Defines all six heading levels, explains their hierarchy and browser rendering, and distinguishes visible headings from title text.
- Examples
- Uses article and section titles, a six-level heading listing, and CSS rules for h1 color and size.
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch by marking page titles and nested sections with h1 through h6 elements.
Design for Developers
A heading element is a semantic HTML element that marks a section heading and communicates its structural importance.
- How it is used
- Structures page content, signals section importance, and supports a consistent typographic hierarchy.
- How deep it goes
- Explains semantic levels, CSS pairing, and a worked type ramp with line-height and margin calculations.
- Examples
- Uses H1-H3 and paragraph sizes of 48px, 36px, 28px, and 16px with calculated line heights and margins.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via HTML and CSS by selecting semantic levels and tuning size, line height, and spacing.
Web Design Playground, Second Edition
An HTML heading element is an element from h1 through h6 that marks heading text and indicates its level in a page hierarchy.
- How it is used
- Organizes page content into a readable outline of main headings, sections, and subsections.
- How deep it goes
- Defines six heading levels, explains their hierarchy and default rendering, and stops short of advanced semantic page divisions.
- Examples
- Shows a six-level HTML listing, browser-rendered heading sizes, and a main heading for a sample page.
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch by adding hierarchical headings that make a web page easier to read and navigate.
Read how Web Design Playground, Second Edition explains heading →
Related concepts
- font-size propertyconfigured by · The CSS font-size property specifies the nominal size of an element’s rendered text.
- HTML elementkind of · An HTML element is a component of an HTML document, defined by markup and represented in the document structure, with permitted attributes, content, and semantics.
- h3 elementincludes · An h3 element is an HTML heading element representing the third hierarchical level in a document or section.
- technical articlepart of · A written article that explains or discusses a technical subject.
- CSSused by · CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is a stylesheet language for specifying the presentation and layout of structured documents and user interfaces.
These guides are generated from the text of Manning books by Manning's knowledge graph and link to the sections they draw on. The full books are available on liveBook and at manning.com.