Headers are positioned at the top margin and footers at the bottom margin of each page in the current section of a document. Headers and Footers are primarily used in Word to include additional information such as date, page numbers, file name, company logo etc. that are required to be displayed on each page of the document.
A header is a line or several lines of text at the top of each page just below the tip margin. The header usually contains the title and the section of the document. Footer is a line or several lines of text at the bottom margin. When we choose View/Header and Footer, the document dims, the header are becomes active and the Header and footer are displayed. We can insert current date, authors name, page number etc. we can control the placement of the header or footer text by specifying where it should appear: left aligned, in center or right–aligned. As the figure below shows the header and footer toolbar
Header and Footer Toolbar
- To add page number
- To add number of pages
- To add date
- To add time
- To switch between header and footer
- To close this view.
Following are the steps to insert or edit Headers and Footers
- Select the View menu
- Choose the Header and Footer option in the view menu
- The Header section at the top of the document opens such that the current text document immediately becomes dull
- Enter the text that needs to appear in the Header segment like AutoText, Page Numbers, Date and Time buttons and even graphics
- Click the Switch between Header and Footer button on the Header and Footer toolbar to insert any necessary text or field codes in the footer
- In order to compose different headers and footers in different segments, click Show Previous or Show Next buttons to activate the header/footer in the previous or next section of the document, and then make necessary changes to that header/footer
- Click Close button on Header and Footer toolbar to close the Header and Footer toolbar once you have finished editing the headers and footers to return to the document
Different First Page Header and Footer
This feature in Word provides a new section titled First Page Header such that you can leave the off the first page or create a unique first page header or footer for the first page in a document or the first page of each section within a document.
Different Odd and Even Header and Footer
Word facilitates the user to use two new sections titled Odd Page Header on the odd numbered pages and Even Page Header on the even-numbered pages. Enter the first header and footer, and click the Show Next button on the Header and Footer toolbar to enter the opposite page header or footer.
Different Headers and Footers on Different Pages
In order to generate different headers and footers on different Odd pages and/or different Even pages, MS-Word facilitates the user with a feature called Section Break used to generate different header and footers on different odd-numbered pages and/or different even-numbered pages as per the requirement of the user and thus help in distinguishing between odd-numbered pages and/or even-numbered pages in the document.
Steps in generating different Headers and Footers on Different Pages are elaborated below using an example. For e.g., Page numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 should contain a header as “MS-Word 2003” and from page number 12 onwards the even page header should contain “MS-PowerPoint 2003”
- Place the cursor at the end of 11th page to test the effect of the section break from 12th page
- Select the Insert menu tab in the toolbar
- Choose the Break option from the Insert menu
- Click on Continuous check box in the Section break
- Go to the 12th page and double-click on the existing header/footer matter Or Select View menu, choose Header and Footer option, the header/footer section gets activated
- Turn off the button same as Previous on the Header and Footer toolbar
- Substitute the current header or footer with different text or object and click Close or double click mouse left button anywhere outside the header/footer margins to activate Close option
- Notice that this header/footer text/object does not affect the previous even pages header/footer
- Be careful that, if you do not turn off the button Same as Previous, then previous header/footer content will be replaced with the current one