Sections, Section Breaks, and Headers and Footers in Microsoft Word Word 97-2003 (for Word 2007-2010 click here) What You Will Learn After completing this lesson, you will be able to: Use sections in Word Use different types of Section Breaks. View Headers and Footers Edit Headers and Footers Use advanced formatting in Headers and Footers Set up Columns in your Document Troubleshoot Sections, Headers and Footers and Page Numbers Additional Written Resources This chapter revised for Word 2007-2010 Word for Law Firms by Payne Consulting Group: Word 97 for Law Firms (also at Amazon.com UK) Word 2000 for Law Firms (also at Amazon.com UK) Word X (2002) for Law Firms (also at Amazon.com UK) Working with Sections (or Why Word appears to behave so illogically when you delete or move a section break or How to preserve section formatting when pasting between documents) by Dave Rado, MVP Create dictionary-style headers / footers describing page contents. Charles Kenyon. How can I get a different header - footer on the second page in Microsoft Word? Charles Kenyon. Includes tips and links on creating letterhead and letter templates. Headers and Footers in Word 2003 - From Basic to Elaborate - a Tutorial Using Headers and Footers by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP - excellent and comprehensive web page How to Control Page Numbering in a Word Document by Bill Coan, MVP. Using Fields for Page Numbering - Much more Control How to Put a Portrait Page Number on a Landscape Page by Bill Coan, MVP, Dave Rado, MVP, and Suzanne Barnhill, MVP The Straight and Narrow: Using Columns by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP and Dave Rado, MVP. Letterhead System - download a system for letter forms that can be easily updated Letterhead Textboxes and Styles Tutorial - two-page template download that demonstrates use of  textboxes in headers and footers to reserve space for preprinted letterhead Styles that are based on each other and use the style for following paragraph feature Use of the StyleRef field to insert information from the body of a letter into the continuation page headers automatically Insertion of a date automatically that will not change when you open the document at a later date (but can be changed manually) See How can I get a different header - footer on the second page in Microsoft Word? for more on how this tutorial works. Date Fields in Microsoft Word So You Want to Write a Book Using Microsoft Word - extensive tutorial by MVP Daiya Mitchell with overview of Styles, Templates and Sections and the interactions among these tool/features. Excellent! Not just for those who want to write books! How to prevent a header/footer from being edited by Bill Coan, MVP How to prevent a header/footer from being edited by Bill Coan, MVPHow to set up a document with front matter numbered separately by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP How to number headings and figures in Appendices by Shawna Kelly Document Splitter by Greg Maxey - addin to break document into component documents   (this guide table of contents) ------- (MS Word New Users FAQ) This chapter last edited by Charles Kenyon on Friday 13 January 2012 .   Using sections in Word Word uses section breaks to specify parts of a document that have different page orientation, columns, or headers and footers. Section breaks allow the user to specify where the different formatting will begin and end. You might use section breaks in the following circumstances: Different headers and footers. If the document you are working on needs to have different headers and footers on various pages, you would use section breaks to achieve this. Different numbering schemes. If you are working in a document where the Table of Contents needs lower case Roman numerals, the contract needs Arabic numerals, and the Appendices need alphabetic numerals, you can achieve all of these with section breaks. Different paper sizes. If you want a document to contain one portrait page and one landscape page, you'll need a section break between the pages. Different margins. If the first page of a letter needs a two-inch margin, and the following pages need a different margin, you'll need a section break in the document. Columns. You can use Word's newspaper column feature in the middle of a page, and place section breaks before and after the multiple columns. If you have text prepared and put it into a column format, word will automatically put in the section breaks. Document protection. You can apply different protection levels to different sections in Word. This lets you allow editing in some sections and not others.   Word 2007 and Word 2010 put the controls for breaks under the Page Layout tab under "Breaks" not on the Insert tab. How to view a Section Break You can see the section breaks in your document in many views, but normal view is the easiest to recognize. Once you insert the section break a double dotted line appears from one side of your document to the other. Practice: Inserting a section break Open a blank document. Change your document view to Normal. Type the following: Title Page. Now choose Insert > Break. Choose Next Page Section Break. Type Table of Contents. Choose Insert > Break. Choose Next Page Section Break. Type Main document. View your document in Print Preview. You now have three sections. Switch between Normal and Page Layout (Word 97) and Print Layout (Word 2000) views in this document to see how the section break appearance differs. Change Page Formatting in a Specific Section To better understand how sections work, think of your document as a book with different chapters, and each chapter starts with page number one. In the last exercise we created a document with three separate sections. We are now able to apply unique formatting to each section of the document. The exercise that follows will help you change the margins and the page layout in the document using section breaks. Practice: Change Page Formats in Sections Use the document you created in the last exercise. Press CTRL+END to move to the end of your document. You should be in Section 3. Choose File > Page Setup >click Paper Size. In the Orientation area, select Landscape. Be sure that Apply to: says This Section.   Warning  If you do not apply the section break to "this section only" the whole document will be formatted in Landscape. Click OK. The last page should now be landscape and the rest of the document should still be portrait. Press CTRL+HOME to go to the top of the document. Choose File > Page Setup >click Layout In the Vertical alignment: section, select Center from the drop-down list. Be sure that Apply to: says This Section. Click OK. Your "TITLE PAGE" text should now be centered vertically. Try changing margins in a specific section. Headers and Footers A header or footer is text or other information such as graphics that is stored at the top or bottom of the page throughout your document. You can use the same header and footer throughout a document or change the header and footer for part of the document. For example, you can use your corporate logo in the first-page header, and then include the document's file name in the header for subsequent pages. To view Headers and Footers in Normal View, click View > Header and Footer. If you are in Page Layout View (Word 97) or Print Layout View (Word 2000), simply double click the visible header or footer that appears as gray text. In either case, the Header/Footer toolbar appears.   Note  The Header and Footer toolbars are identical in Word 97 and Word 2000. It looks a little different in Word 2003 (below). CK Note: If you Edit the Header or Footer the formatting starts with a blank area using the Header and Footer paragraph styles. The basic Header and Footer styles have tab settings for a Center tab at 3" and a Right tab at 6.". These are based on 1.25" margins. You can easily view these settings by showing the Ruler (View -> Ruler). If you want to change the appearance of all of the headers and footers in a document, modify the Header and Footer Styles. Your author tends to have headers and footers extend outside the page margins by half an inch and be in Italic using a different font. I use sanserif fonts for headers and footers and serif fonts for body text. This is intended to emphasize that the headers and footers are outside of the body, a textual frame for the page. Practice: Use the Header/Footer Toolbar Choose View > Header and Footer. Click the Switch Between Header and Footer button . Your cursor should be in the footer. Click the button again to toggle back to the Header. Press the Align Right button on the Formatting toolbar to move to the right side of the Header. Type DRAFT Rough Outline. Click the Switch Between Header and Footer button to move to the footer. Place a Center Tab at 3.25 and a Right Tab at 6.5 on the ruler. Press TAB once to move to the center of the Footer. Click the Insert Page Number button.   Note  If you want to add the word "Page" or dashes on either side of the number, you can type the information before inserting the page number. Press TAB once to move to the right side of the Footer. Click the Date button to insert the date.   Warning  Using the Date button will insert an updating date that will change to the current date each time you print. CK Note: See Using Date Fields in Microsoft Word Click Close on the Header and Footer toolbar. Switch to Print Preview to view your newly added Header and Footer.   CK Note: AutoText in the Header/Footer Toolbar.  There are a number of useful AutoText fields available using the Header/Footer Toolbar. It is important for you to remember that this is really an "AutoText List Field" and as such it is sensitive to the style of the paragraph. If somehow your style gets changed to anything other than the "header" or "footer" style many of your favorite AutoText entries will seem to have vanished! When you paste something into a header or footer, you may want to use Edit => Paste Special... => Unformatted Text so that you don't change the style in your header or footer by mistake. The header and footer styles also have special tabs set that are especially useful in these contexts. (See the practice above.) Word 2007 and 2010 put the controls for the Headers and Footers under the Insert tab. Different First Page There are times when you do not want the page number on the first page of your document. In WordPerfect, this was called Suppress. In Word, the feature is called Different First Page. This means you are still able to put information into the Header or Footer but it will not affect the rest of the Headers and Footers in the document.   Note  This is frequently used when the firm logo or partner's names appear on the first page of a letter. Word 2007 and 2010 put the controls for page numbering under the Insert tab. Different options are presented and you can also get a dialog box using the Format Page Numbers button. Practice: Turn on Different First Page Open the document from the last exercise. Double-click the Header in your document. This will access the header and footer area and turn on the Header and Footer toolbar. Click the Page Setup button on the Header and Footer toolbar. The Page Setup dialog box opens to the Layout tab. Select Different first page. Click OK. Save and close this document. Notice the Header area now says First Page Header. Different Odd and Even The Different Odd and Even option allows you to format your headers and footers differently. For example, you may want the page numbers on the odd pages to be aligned to the right and the page numbers on the even pages to be aligned to the left when you are printing double sided documents. You can access this option from the Page Setup button on the Header and Footer toolbar. Format Page Numbers You will need to understand how to insert and format page numbers. For example, you may add a Table of Contents to your document and would like the page numbering to be in lowercase Roman numeral format. As long as your document is divided into sections, you can have differently formatted page numbers in each section of your document. Same As Previous Word's default is to connect all the Headers in the document and all the footers in the document so they are all the same. It does this by using the Same as the Previous command. It is important to turn OFF the Same as Previous option FIRST before you make any other changes. This will prevent the previous section from being changed as well.   Tip  It is usually better to start at the top of your document when working with Headers and Footers.   Warning  Word's default is to always make the Header and Footer of a new section the Same as the Previous section. Turn off Same as Previous first, or else your changes will affect the previous section.   CK Note: How many Sections do you need? If you are inserting a section break just to change the text in your header / footer, look into use of the StyleRef field with Word's built-in heading styles. This lets you change the content of your header / footer without making any change in the header / footer. The StyleRef field can reflect the content  of the latest heading or other style and change each time you format something new with that Style. Note each section in Word can have up to three headers and three footers. The choices of different first page, different odd and even apply to both headers and footers for each section. The setting for link with previous is independent for each of these, that is, the first page header can be linked to previous while the first-page footer is not and neither setting has any effect on the settings for the odd or even page headers and footers. CK Note: Page Numbers. "There are two places you can put page numbers: in the footer, or in the document.  If you put them in the document, you can never get proper control of them.  This is the greatest trap there is for young page-numberers.  The page number MUST be inserted into the footer!  If your document already has page numbers, click on one.  If it shows the square bounding box of a floating text box, it’s in the document: delete it!" John McGhie, How to Create A Template. I have gone so far as to remove the Page Numbers... command from my Insert Menu!   See How to Control Page Numbering in a Word Document. For more information on using chapter numbering, see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/ChapterNumber.htm. For more information on numbering appendixes, see http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/numbering/NumberingAppendixes.html.   Practice: Format Page Numbers Create a new blank document. Save As (your initials) Sections. Type Confidential Employment Agreement ZZZ Company January 1, 2000 Choose Insert > Break. From the Section Breaks area, select Next Page to insert a Next Page section break. Type Table of Contents and press ENTER. Insert a Next Page section break. From the Style drop-down list on the Formatting toolbar, choose Body Text. Type =rand(30) and press ENTER. Insert a Next Page section break. Type Appendix: Salary Increases and press ENTER. Choose File > Page Setup > Paper Size. Under Orientation, select Landscape. Be sure that Apply to: says This section. Save the document. Press CTRL+HOME to get the top of the document. Choose View > Header and Footer. Click the Switch Between Header and Footer button. Your cursor should be in the footer of the first page. Notice that it says: Footer Section 1. We do not want a page number on the first page so leave it blank. Click the Show Next button to jump to the next footer. It should read: Footer Section Notice on the right that it says Same As Previous. Click the Same As Previous button. This disconnects Section 2 footer from Section 1 footer. Choose the Center button on the Formatting toolbar to move your cursor to the middle of the footer. Click the Format Page Number button. The Page Number Format dialog box opens. From the Number format drop-down list, choose lowercase Roman Numerals. Under Page Numbering, select Start at to have the page numbers start counting from this section. Click OK to return to the footer. Click the Insert Page Number button on the Header/Footer toolbar. Click Show Next to move the cursor to Footer-Section 3. Turn off Same As Previous using the button on the Header/Footer toolbar. Click Page Number Format. Change the number format to Arabic numerals, and choose Start At and change the Start At to 1. Click OK. Click Show Next to move the cursor to Footer-Section 4. Turn off Same As Previous. Change the number format to capital letters. Click Close on the Header/Footer toolbar. Switch to Print Preview and make sure your page numbers are correct. How to Put a Portrait Page Number on a Landscape Page by Bill Coan, MVP, Dave Rado, MVP, and Suzanne Barnhill, MVP Word 2010 Tutorial on Headers and Footers Headers and Footers in Word 2003 - From Basic to Elaborate - a Tutorial   Columns (CK Section) Columns are a creature of Sections in Word, like headers and footers. The command to set them up is found under the Format menu. This opens a dialog box. The dialog box has five presets and also lets you set your column options manually. The "Apply to:" choice of "This point forward" allows you to insert a continuous section break where you are and make the rest of the current section have the column settings you want. The default is "This section."  The Start new column checkbox is one way to insert a column break before the bottom of the page. If you select the Left or Right column preset it unchecks the Equal column width setting. Line between inserts a vertical line between columns. You can set the number of columns to a larger number if you want. Note though that more than 3 columns is not practical on a portrait layout letter-size page. Unchecking the Equal column width setting lets you manually change your column width. The spacing between columns is preset at 0.5." Adjusting this is a way to get all of your text on one page or fill out a page. Practice: Formatting Columns Open the document with three sections from the Header/Footer Exercises. Press Ctrl-End to go to the end of the document. Press the ENTER after the Heading "Main Document" Type =rand(30, 4) and press ENTER. Go back to the point just under the heading. Under the Format menu, select Columns click on the preset for two columns. Click OK Notice that if you were in Normal view you are now in Print Layout view. Notice that your heading is inside the columns. Press Ctrl-Z to undo the column formatting. Reopen the Columns dialog box from the Format menu. Select the two column preset and under "Apply to" select "This Point Forward." Click OK. Notice that your Heading is now outside the Column formatting. You have just created a new (continuous) section break. Reopen the Columns dialog box from the Format Menu. Try clicking the preset to have three columns instead of two. Click OK. Note that it applies to the current section. Click in the middle of the page in the middle of a paragraph. Reopen the Columns dialog box from the Format Menu. Select the two column preset and under "Apply to" select "This Point Forward." Click OK. Note that you now have a three column section followed by a two column section. Note that the section break was inserted in the middle of your paragraph, even in the middle of a sentence! The Column set up in Word is the equivalent to "Snaking columns" in Word Perfect. To get parallel columns in Word you would use Tables. Trouble Shooting Sections, Headers and Footers, Page Numbering Why is the spacing off in the footer of a landscape page? Check first to see if there are section breaks setting off the landscape page. Even though the footer will look the "same as previous," that option must be turned off. After turning it off, move the center tab to 5.5 inches and the right tab to 10 inches. Continue to the following section and, again, turn off "same as previous." The page number was formatted to show A, B, C. It's not appearing in the footer. Although the number was formatted correctly, it was not inserted. First format the number to get what is needed; then insert the number in the footer. I can't see the headers and footers. If you are in Normal View, it is necessary to click View > Header and Footer. If you switch to Page Layout View (Word 97) or Print Layout View (Word 2000) you will see them as unavailable. Double-click in the header or footer and the Header/Footer toolbar will be accessible. The section break doesn't allow me to have both portrait and landscape text on the same page. Unfortunately, Word will not allow this by the use of a section break. To achieve the desired effect, you must insert a text box. CK Note: Everything that follows has been added by me and does not appear in the original of this chapter. I have the codes for Page 1 of 3 (x of y) in my header/footer. It is different on the screen from when it prints out. Or, I get Page 1 of 1, Page 2 of 2, Page 3 of 3, etc. Unfortunately this feature doesn't work very well. There are a number of reasons for this, including background printing and the timing of field updates. The best work-around that I have heard of is to use a Cross-Reference for the "Y" of Page X of Y. Put a bookmark on the last page of your document - at the very end - and use Insert | Cross-Reference to insert the page number on which that bookmark may be found. Other things to do include: Turn off background printing. Turn off display of hidden text if you have any in your document. View the document in Print Preview (Page Preview) mode including the last page of the document to force an update of the fields.  For more on this see: http://www.addbalance.com/word/pagexofy.htm. For more on bookmarks and cross-references see Complex Legal Documents. I set my document for a "Different First Page" but that header/footer is showing up on pages in the middle of my document. Or, I have "Different First Page" set so I don't have a header/footer on the first page but all of my pages or a lot of my pages besides the first page have no header/footer. Do you have section breaks? Each section has its own first page. The settings for headers/footers are separate for each section but are often linked so that the header/footer in the first section is continued throughout the document. Actually, each section can have up to three different headers (and three different footers), which is the case if you have selected "Different odd and even" and "Different first page" (also on the Header & Footer Tools Design tab). When you have multiple headers (footers), each type must be separately unlinked from its "neighbor" in the preceding section. This gets especially complex if you have multiple sections on a single page. (Thanks to Stefan Blom, MVP for putting this concept so well.) I know I can have a different header/footer on the first page of my document / section. Can I have a different one on the last page? Yes, but it takes some work with fields. This is beyond the scope of this article but involves using an IF field to test if the page is the last page of the document or section and give a different result depending on the answer. See the Fields article to see an example. I made a change in my Section 2 Header / Footer and the Section 1 Header / Footer changed too. You need to unlink the header / footer. First, though, Copy your new contents to the Clipboard. Then press Ctrl-Z until it is back to what it looked like before you made the changes. Then unlink the header / footer and Paste your changes back. Remember, each header/footer's linked state is independent of all others. I added a next-page section break to my document. It should have been a continuous section break instead. The way to handle this is through the Page Layout Dialog. The simplest way to access this is by double-clicking on the Ruler. It can also be accessed through the Page Layout tab's dialog box dropdown. On the Layout tab is a dropdown that lets you change the type of the current section.   See also Troubleshooting Sections