How The Heck Do I... add a header or footer to a word processing document

How The Heck Do I...

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Sometimes people unaccustomed to using a word processor try to add a header to the page by just typing the information at the top of each page.

This is actually a fairly ineffective way to do it. If you even add one sentence to your document, all the text moves along - and you can suddenly find that the header you've so carefully typed at the top of each one of six different pages is suddenly in the middle of the page.

Uh oh. Not a good look!

Here's how you insert a header the right way - so it stays where you intended it to: at the top!

Step 1:

Click on the "View" menu on your toolbar at the top of the page.

In the drop-down menu, choose "Header and Footer". (If at first you can't see this, click on the double-headed arrow at the bottom of the menu. All the items in the menu will then appear.)

Step 2:

The header box will immediately open at the top of your page.

Type into this header box whatever you want to appear at the top of your document.

Step 3:

For this exercise we'll type the details of a student who is doing Assignment 5(b) in a course on Mystery Writing. Jane needs to type in her name, student number, the name of the course, and the assignment number in the header.

She does this... and also adds a page reference number, just in case the pages are printed out and get separated.

To type in a page number, Jane does not type in "Page 1". If she does, every page will have a number one on it. That's not much use! Instead, Jane types the word "Page" and leaves a space, then she clicks on the hash mark icon on the Header and Footer box.

When she does this, the word processor automatically inserts the correct number on each page.

Step 4:

Jane clicks on "Close". When she does, the Header and Footer box disappears, and so does the dotted rectangle around the header.

This is what she will see:

Any time Jane wants to change the details in her header box, she can do it either by opening the 'view header and footer' box as we did this time, OR she can simply double-click the left mouse button on the header. The box will open immediately ready for editing.