Page Breaks, Headers and footers Page numbering (Office 2007)

Inserting Page Breaks

• When you start typing into a document, the text normally starts at the top-left of the page and as you type more words they are displayed on the line moving towards the right of the page.  When the words you are typing reach the right side of the screen they automatically drop down to the next line.  If you continue typing you eventually fill that page, at which point Microsoft Word automatically moves on to the next page.  These automatic page breaks that are inserted by Microsoft Word are called 'soft' page breaks.  Sometimes you wish to force Microsoft Word to leave a blank area displayed at the bottom of one page and the next text to be displayed on a new page.  To do this you need to insert a manual page break (sometimes called a hard page break). 

• Insert a few page breaks into your document.  To do this click at the point you wish to insert the page break and then press Ctrl+Enter.

Deleting Page Breaks

• Normally you do not see the page break within a document, only the effect of the page break.  

• Click on the Home tab and from within the Paragraph group, click on the Show / Hide icon.  

• Any page breaks within the document will now be displayed as illustrated below. 

• To remove a page break, click to the right of the page break and press the Backspace key. 

Good practice – Use page breaks rather than repeatedly pressing the Return key

• If you wish to insert a new page, always use ‘page break’ method.  Never keep pressing the Return key until Word skips to a new page.

Headers and footers

• If you are planning to print a document, it is a good idea to add a footer or header to the document, especially if it is a long document. 

• Click on the Insert tab and from the Header and Footer section click on the Header icon.  A drop down list is displayed.  Select the Edit Header command.

• The header area will be displayed on screen as illustrated. 

• Type in your header text.  In this case type in your name. 

• If you look closely you will see that a special header and footer ribbon is displayed.  This ribbon displays related commands to enhance your header or footer.  

• Click on the Close Header and Footer icon.   

• You can see your header displayed at the top of your page.  

• To insert a footer, click on the Footer icon and select the Edit Footer command.

• Type in the following text as your footer and then close the Header and Footer ribbon.  ‘Draft copy only’

Page numbering

• You can insert automatic page numbering into a document header or footer.  As this is inserted as a field when you modify the number of pages within the document the page numbering is also updated on each page.

• Click on the Insert tab and from the Header and Footer section click on the Header icon.  A drop down list is displayed, select the Edit Header command.  You should see your name displayed as the header.  

• Click just after your name and press the Tab key twice.  

• Click on the Page Number button and then select Current Position.   

• Select Plain Number from the Page Number gallery.  The page number should be inserted into your document.  Close the Header and Footer ribbon.

Header and footer fields

• Microsoft Word fields are easy to insert and can be automatically updated.  For instance you could insert the date within the header of a document and arrange it so that each time you reprinted the document, the current date was displayed.  This would mean that if you printed the document each month, then the correct month would be displayed within the header. 

• Click on the Insert tab, and from the Header and Footer section click on the Footer icon.  A drop down list is displayed, select the Edit Footer command.  You should see your footer text.  Click at the end of the footer text. Press the Tab key twice. 

• Click on the Quick Parts button.  From the drop down list displayed select the Field command. 

  This will display the Field dialog box.  This allows you insert a wide range of fields.  In this case select Date, as illustrated.

• Click on the OK button. Close the Header and Footer Ribbon and you will see your footer displayed at the bottom of each page. 

• If you have time, have a brief look at some of the other fields that you can insert into your header or footer.   

• The Filename field is particularly useful as if you insert this into a header or footer and then save your document this field will record the file name.  You will find with a little experimentation that this field can also include the folder storage location on your hard disk. 

• Save your changes and close the document.

Editing text within a header or footer

• Open a document called Editing headers and footers.  This document has text in the header and footer area. The header looks like this.   

• Double click over the header area and the screen will change, as illustrated, allowing you to edit the existing header text.   

• Change the text so that it displays your name.  An example is illustrated below.    NOTE: To change the text, select the text that you wish to replace and overtype with the new text.

• Scroll down to view the footer text.  Edit this text as illustrated below.   

• Save your changes and close the document.