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About this lesson

Learn how to add Headers and Footers to a document.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Headers and Footers
67.4 KB Headers and Footers - Solution
67.1 KB

Quick reference

Headers and Footers


Learn how to work with Headers and Footers and the ribbon features included.

When to use

Use a header or footer when you have some information that you would like to be automatically added to every page in your document, for example your name on a report, or your logo on a business letter.

Instructions

Access Header with the mouse:

  1. Move your mouse to the top margin of the page and double click.  Observe the three changes to your screen:
    1. The document portion is shaded and the header portion is bright
    2. The dashed line appears with the header label
    3. A new ribbon opens at the top:
  2. You can also scroll to the bottom to adjust your Footer or access it via the double click into the bottom margin of the page.

Access Header with the Insert Ribbon:


  1. Click the Insert Ribbon
  2. Click Header drop-down arrow and choose a Header layout
  3. Enter the text to display

Two options to close the Header/Footer:

  1. Move your mouse to the document page and double click. 
    OR
  2. Choose “Close Header/Footer” on the Header & Footer Tools ribbon

 

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  • 00:04 Hello, in this video I'd like to introduce you to headers and footers.
  • 00:08 Headers are very important because if you ever have text that you want repeated
  • 00:13 on the subsequent pages of a long document you wanna place it in the header.
  • 00:17 For instance, I have this logo up here on the top of this exercise file and
  • 00:21 if I scroll down to the second page, that same logo appears again.
  • 00:24 Now, that's only been placed in there once, inside the header,
  • 00:27 but it's going to show up on every subsequent page.
  • 00:31 Now the next one we have is, on the footer, we have the website.
  • 00:35 Now if I scroll down to the bottom of the second page, that footer is there as well.
  • 00:39 So that's why you use headers and footers.
  • 00:42 Any repeated information on subsequent pages will show up there.
  • 00:46 The problem is how to access that.
  • 00:48 Now I can click around right up here and try to click on that little logo or
  • 00:52 try to type into my header area,
  • 00:55 but it's not going to let me because I'm active on my document.
  • 00:59 Okay, so here we go, on the ruler you can see this top gray area.
  • 01:03 That's your top margin.
  • 01:04 That's where the header area is.
  • 01:07 Now the quick way to access that, of course I could go to insert header and
  • 01:12 footer, but generally most people, they don't use it too often, so
  • 01:16 they forget where it is.
  • 01:17 But the cheat way,
  • 01:18 the quick trick to get in there, just double click in the top margin.
  • 01:21 So I'm going to float my mouse right in here, and I'm gonna double click.
  • 01:24 Click, click.
  • 01:24 And that will open up a header.
  • 01:26 Now, three things happened.
  • 01:28 Your document itself looks a little grayed out cuz it's now not available for typing.
  • 01:33 Cuz you are active,
  • 01:34 your flashing insertion point is active inside the header area.
  • 01:37 We also have the header market with a dashed line across it, and
  • 01:41 now that logo is bright, and now I can click on that logo and
  • 01:43 I can move it around, i'll just kinda place in the center real quick.
  • 01:47 So that is how you access the header.
  • 01:49 Now I can scroll down at this point, because my footer is also active.
  • 01:54 Once you activate the header, your footer's active as well.
  • 01:57 And so I could type a note down in here.
  • 02:00 I'll type Bottom of Page.
  • 02:03 And if I scroll down and
  • 02:04 look at the second page, those words are automatically on the next page.
  • 02:09 And so that's the beauty of the headers and footers.
  • 02:13 Now, to deactivate that and go back to your document,
  • 02:16 you simply double click inside your document.
  • 02:18 Click, click.
  • 02:19 Activate your document area, and
  • 02:21 try as you might, you're not gonna be able to click on that little logo and
  • 02:24 move it around until you access headers and footers again.
  • 02:28 So let's do it via the ribbon this time.
  • 02:30 Go ahead and click on insert and then we have header, footer.
  • 02:34 Now notice they also have drop down arrows, so you can actually,
  • 02:37 if you don't know what kind of header you want, go ahead and scroll through.
  • 02:41 It's got page number examples.
  • 02:43 Banner examples, all kinds of examples that you can use.
  • 02:46 And so you can go ahead and choose one of those, and let's see,
  • 02:50 I'll just choose this one right here.
  • 02:51 Now beware, when I click on this one,
  • 02:54 it's going to erase what I already have in my header.
  • 02:58 So I'm going to go ahead and click on that.
  • 03:00 And there we go. It's prompting me type here,
  • 03:03 type here, type here.
  • 03:04 It's already red.
  • 03:05 It's just giving you ideas to type three.
  • 03:07 This could be the date,
  • 03:08 this could be the title, this could be the company name, whatever you prefer.
  • 03:12 Now I'm going to go ahead and click this button, close header.
  • 03:15 Of course, now you know you can double click in the document and
  • 03:18 close the header.
  • 03:19 But maybe you're looking up here.
  • 03:21 Go ahead and close the header, and then we have our new header up there.
  • 03:25 So scroll down to the second page, and there it is.
  • 03:28 So, the beauty is whatever you put in the header stays in the header, and
  • 03:32 the footer, and it's very nice.
  • 03:34 Now, in the next video we're gonna talk about page numbering and file location
  • 03:40 notes, which are incredibly important in our world of electronic files.
  • 03:45 All right, I hope you will practice using headers and footers.

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