Headers and Footers

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Word Processing I >>
Headers and Footers

A Header is the space above the top margin of a page, while a footer is the space below the bottom margin. Text, page numbers, or date/time stamps can be inserted in this space. These headers and footers can also be formatted so the first page (the title page) will not show a header or footer, but they will appear on the rest of the document.

For the assignment, you will insert a header containing AutoText for your file's pathname and a footer containing the page numbers.

To view the header or footer,

go to the View menu
click Header and Footer.
the document window will move to the header window (by default), which will appear at the top of the page as follows:

The following Header and Footer toolbar will also appear.

To create the header, enter text in the header window or click a button on the above toolbar.
For your assignment, you will create a header by entering the Filename and path from the Insert AutoText drop-down menu shown above.
Align this text to the right. by clicking on the "Right Alignment" button on the Formatting toolbar:

Alternatively, there is a shortcut to alignment in the header and footer windows. The text or graphics you enter in a header or footer is automatically left aligned. You may want to centre the item instead or include multiple items (for example, a left-aligned date and a right-aligned page number). To center an item, press TAB; to right align an item, press TAB twice.

The next part of your assignment will be to enter a footer at the bottom of your document, which includes the page number.

To move to the footer, click on the "Switch between Header and Footer" button on the Header and Footer toolbar shown above. This button will look like the following:

The document view will then switch from the Header window to the Footer window.
To insert the page number, click on the "insert page number" button on the toolbar. This button looks like the following:

The page number will appear in the footer window. Align this text to the right, as you did with the header.
Change the page number from "1,2,3" format to "i, ii, ii" or "a,b,c."
To format the page number, click on the "format page number" button on the Header and Footer toolbar. The button looks like the following:

Clicking on this button will get you the following pop-up window:

From the "Number format" drop-down menu, select the numbering style you want.
In the "Page numbering" section of this window, you can choose to modify the start number for your numbering.
Click OK to set your preferences.
To complete your assignment, you must format your page, so that no header or footer shows up on the first page of the document. To do this, click on the "Page setup" button on the Header and Footer toolbar. This button looks like:

You should get the following window:

On the "Layout" tab of this window (as shown above), put a checkmark in the box for "Different first page" from the Headers and Footers section. This will prevent any headers or footers from appearing on the first page. They will, instead, appear on the second page and onward.
Click OK to set this preference.

You should note that setting the header/footer margins are different than setting the margins for your document. To view header/footer margins, go to the "Margins" tab of the above window.

Other buttons on the Header and Footer toolbar (not covered here) include

"insert date"
"insert time"
"show/hide document text" (which helps if document text and header/footer text overlap)
"same as previous" (which is used to connect different sections of a document)
"see next"
"see previous" (which is to skip to the header/footer from different sections of the document)

You have completed the lesson portion for this module. Please return to the Assignment section of the Word I module.