Add headers, footers, and page numbers

A header sits at the top of each page and a footer at the bottom. Use them for a title, a logo, or page numbers. You type them right on the page, in its top and bottom margins.

Add a header or footer

1. Double-click in the top margin of the page for the header, or in the bottom margin, after your last line, for the footer. An empty margin shows Double-click to add a header when you point at it. You can also open the Insert menu and choose Page elements → Header or Page elements → Footer, or choose Format → Headers and footers.
2. Type what you want. The toolbar and the Format and Insert menus now work on the header or footer, so you can make text bold, align it, or add an image. Click an image or a table in it to open its panel on the right, as in your text. An image in a header or footer sits on its own line: you can align it, but text doesn't wrap around it, and it can't go behind or in front of the text.
3. Press Esc, or click in your text, to go back to it.

While you edit a header or footer, a bar separates it from your text, labeled Header or Footer. The Insert menu greys out what a header or footer can't hold, such as a chart, a page break, or an equation. To change a header or footer later, double-click it. A single click does nothing, so a link in it still opens.

Add page numbers

Open Insert → Page elements → Page numbers, or Format → Page numbers, and pick where the number goes:

• In the header or In the footer puts the number on the right of every page.
• In the header, not on the first page or In the footer, not on the first page leaves the first page without one, which suits a cover page or a letter. It turns on Different first page for you.

The number goes in and your cursor moves to that header or footer. A header or footer that already has a page number keeps that one. To put a page number somewhere else, such as in your text, choose Page number from the same menu. To add the number of pages, as in "Page 3 of 7", choose Page count. Both go in at your cursor. On screen, a page number shows as #page and a page count as #pages. Point at one to see which it is. While you edit a header or footer, Options → Page numbers on the bar holds the same choices.

Give the first page its own header and footer

While you edit a header or footer, tick Different first page on the bar. What you typed stays as the header or footer for the other pages, and your cursor moves to a new, empty First page header above it, or First page footer below it. While you edit a header, both headers show, each on its own bar, and you click either one to edit it. The same goes for the footers. Otherwise the top of the page shows the first page's header and the bottom the other pages' footer. A letterhead on page 1 and a short title on the rest is the usual use.

Set how far it sits from the edge of the page

While you edit a header, choose Options → Header format… on the bar, or Options → Footer format… while you edit a footer. Under Margins, type how far the header sits from the top of the page and the footer from the bottom, in centimeters, and click Apply. Both start at 1.27 cm. A header or footer stays inside its margin, so the distance can be no more than the margin. Different first page is in the same window too.

Remove a header or footer

Double-click the header or footer, then choose Options → Remove header or Options → Remove footer on the bar. Options → Page setup… opens the paper and margin settings. See Set the paper size, orientation, and margins.

Good to know

• File → Print and the PDF and Word downloads put the header and footer on every page, with the page numbers filled in, and the first page's own when it differs, at the distance from the edge you set. A page number or page count in your text is filled in too. The web page download shows the header at the top and the footer at the end.
• A header or footer taller than its margin moves your text away from it, on the page and in the PDF. In the PDF, the header and footer never take more than half the page: the rest of a taller one runs over your text. The PDF cuts a header or footer after about 200 paragraphs or 20,000 characters.
• Importing a Word file brings its header and footer along, at their distance from the edge. See Import a Word document.
• Comments and Find work on your text, not on the header or footer.
• On a phone you see the header and footer on the page, but you can't change them.
• Only people who can edit the document can change its header and footer.