How to Make Different Headers and Footers in Microsoft Word

Headers and footers seem to be the most difficult part of Microsoft Word for people to grasp.  But headers and footers really are not that complicated.  The main thing that you need to remember when working with headers and footers is that "sections" play an important role if you want to create different headers and footers.

In order to have different headers and footers throughout a single document, the document has to be separated into sections.

For example, if you want to restart the page numbering at page 10 so that page 10 actually display "Page 1", then you have to insert a section break on page 9.

1. Click Insert on the menu bar
2. Choose Break
3. Choose Next Page

Now if you turn on your "Show/Hide", you will see a dotted line across the page with the words "Section Break (Next Page)" in the center of the line.  The Show/Hide button is the button on your Standard toolbar that looks like a backwards "P".  Use this button anytime you want to see the formatting marks within your document.  To turn it off, just click it again.

Now that you've inserted a section break on page 9, you can change the footer on page 10.  Go to page 10 and click into the footer.  You will see that the Footer displays "Footer - Section 2" on the left side and "Same as Previous" on the right.  Since you want this footer to be different than the footer in the previous page (which is now the previous section), you need to turn off the "same as previous" option.

1. Place your cursor in the footer (the Header and Footer Toolbar will display).
2. Click on the button that is highlighted called "Link to Previous".  (Just hover your mouse over it to display the name.)

This turns off the "same as previous" option.  You should no longer see "same as previous" on the footer border.  This means that you can go ahead and make any changes that you need to the footer without it affecting the previous section.

1. Place your cursor where you want the page number to be (probably centered).
2. Click on the Format Page Number button on the Header and Footer Toolbar.
3. Click the button next to Start At and make sure there is a "1" in the field.
4. Click OK.
5. Now type the word "Page" and a space in the footer
6. Click the Insert Page Number button on the Header and Footer toolbar.

You should now see "Page 1" displayed in the footer.  The rest of the pages for this section will have the same footer displayed with consecutive page numbers.

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So, remember these steps each time you want different headers or footers in your documents:

1. Insert a Section Break (Next Page) on the previous page.
2. Turn OFF the "same as previous" option by clicking the "link to previous" button on the toolbar.
3. Click the Format Page Number button and choose Start At and enter the page number to start at.
4. Then click the Insert Page Number button.

I hope this article has given you enough information to begin working with Headers and Footers in your Microsoft Word documents.