Is There A Way To Customize The Header On Each Page Of A Word Document

Give-and-take features a few congenital-in ways to alter up your headers and footers in a document. For example, you can pretty easily have different headers and footers for odd and even pages, or you can have a different header and footer on the first page. To get beyond that, you'll need to create multiple sections in your document, and acquire how to link and unlink headers and footers from the preceding section.

For sit-in purposes, we've created a simple certificate that uses a plain text header with the words "How-To Geek" and a plain text footer with a page number (like in the prototype at the peak of the commodity).

Notation: We're using Discussion 2016 for our examples in this commodity, but the techniques nosotros're talking about apply to pretty much whatever version of Word.

Create a Different Header and Footer on the First Page

One typical document convention is having a different header and footer on the first page of a document than shows up in the rest of the document. Perchance you have a title page where you want no header or footer at all. Or, perhaps you want the start page footer to show some official disclaimer text for your company, and the footer in the residual of the document to show page numbers. Whatever your reason, Give-and-take makes this like shooting fish in a barrel.

First, double-click anywhere in either the header or footer region of a folio to make those regions active.

The header/footer region becomes active and you'll see a new "Design" tab show upwards on your Ribbon with controls for dealing with headers and footers. On that tab, select the "Unlike First Page" option.

When yous select that pick, whatsoever text already in the header and footer on the first page is deleted. Likewise note that the name of the areas on the first page change to "First Page Header" and "First Page Footer." You lot tin can leave them blank, or you lot tin can fill the spaces with other text that will non affect the headers and footers on subsequent pages at all.

Create Dissimilar Headers and Footers on Odd and Fifty-fifty Pages

Word also has a born option for creating dissimilar headers and footers for odd and fifty-fifty pages. By far, the near common use of this characteristic is to have page numbers appear at the outer edges of facing pages—the way you run into information technology done in about books.

To practise this, double-click anywhere in either the header or footer region of a folio to make those regions active.

The header/footer region becomes active and you'll come across a new "Pattern" tab testify up on your Ribbon with controls for dealing with headers and footers. On that tab, select the "Dissimilar Odd & Fifty-fifty Pages" choice.

When y'all select that option, anything you lot accept in the footers of even numbered pages is deleted. You can and then put annihilation you lot want there, and align it however yous like.

Create Different Headers and Footers for Different Sections of Your Document

Unfortunately, that's where the easy control of headers and footers in Give-and-take ends. If you want to change headers and footers within the document whatever more than we've already covered, yous'll have to interruption your document into sections. In that location are all kinds of reasons yous might want to practise this. For example:

You have some graphics or spreadsheets in your certificate that you want on landscape-oriented pages, when the rest of the document is portrait-oriented. You nevertheless want the headers and footers at the vertical top and bottom of the pages, though.
You're creating a long document with multiple chapters and don't want headers and footers (or desire them to look different) on the title pages of each chapter.
You want to number some pages differently. For case, maybe y'all want your introduction and table of contents pages numbered with Roman numerals, but the main text of your certificate numbered with Arabic numerals.

Any your reasons, the pull a fast one on is to create dissimilar sections where you want the headers and footers to look unlike. Personally, I find information technology easiest to call up near the document alee of time and create all the sections I need earlier I start populating the document. This often prevents the weird layout glitches you can get (and so accept to resolve) when sectioning an already full document. That said, y'all can yet create sections in an existing document, and the process is the same.

RELATED: How to Utilize Breaks in Microsoft Word to Better Format Your Documents

Identify your cursor wherever y'all want to create a department interruption (typically this will exist at the stop of a page), and then switch to the "Layout" tab on the Ribbon. Click the "Breaks" push, and and so choose the type of interruption y'all want. Usually, this is going to exist a folio break, so that'south what nosotros're using here.

Now, double-click the header or footer expanse on the page after the break you inserted. On the "Design" tab of the Ribbon, click the "Link to Previous" button to turn that selection off. This breaks the link betwixt the header or footer (any y'all have selected) of this section and the previous section. If you want to break the link for both the header and footer, you'll need to do each one in turn this way.

Unlinking does not delete whatever existing text or images in the header or footer. Y'all can remove, alter, or replace what's already in your header or footer, and your changes will not impact the headers and footers in the previous section.

If you decide to reestablish a link to a previous sections header or footer, though, that activity is destructive. When you relink sections, the header and footer in the active section is removed and replaced with whatever'southward in the previous section. To do it, just double-click the header or footer on the page after the break. On the "Blueprint" tab of the Ribbon, click the "Link to Previous" button to turn that selection back on.

Word warns you that you'll be deleting the electric current header or footer, and replacing it with the header or footer from the previous section. Click "Yeah" to make information technology happen.

And just similar that, your header or footer is reconnected to the previous section. Just remember that you'll have to link or unlink both the header and footer as separate actions.