Sections are the Word feature that controls page number formatting, headers and footers, orientation (portrait/landscape), margins and columns. If you are having problems or questions with one of these, you need to know more about Sections in Word. Show What You Will LearnAfter completing this lesson, you will be able to: Additional Written ResourcesNote: Although many of the links below contain certain version numbers as a part of the link, the structure of sections including headers, footers, page numbers, margins and columns has remained the same since Word 97. Don't be afraid to look at something that says it is about a different version. (this guide table of contents) ------- (MS Word New Users FAQ) This chapter last edited by Charles Kenyon on Sunday 23 October 2022 . Preliminary note. This chapter is based on the Sections chapter of the Legal Users Guide for Microsoft Word which was developed for Word 2002. It has been modified extensively by Charles Kenyon. The most extensive modification was the inclusion of hyperlinks, but the text has been modified as well as questions have arisen. These modifications have not undergone any kind of peer review, just comments from users. Using Sections in WordDifferent Headers and footers. If the document you are working on needs to have different Headers and footers on various pages, you would use Section breaks to achieve this. Note, using the StyleRef Field in your Headers and footers will make the need for changes less than you might anticipate.Different page numbering schemes. If you are working in a document where the Table of Contents needs lower case Roman numerals, the contract needs Arabic numerals, and the Appendices need alphabetic numerals, you can achieve all of these with Section breaks. See How to set up a document with front matter by Suzanne Barnhill for a full discussion.Different paper sizes. If you want a document to contain one portrait page and one landscape page, you'll need a Section break between the pages.Different margins. Be sure to distinguish Margins from Paragraph Indents. If the first page of a letter needs a two-inch margin, and the following pages need a different margin, you should not use a Section break in the document. A Section break is not appropriate for this purpose. You can use a different first-page Header to mimic a different margin without inserting a Section break. You may want different margins in different parts of your document for other purposes, though. A Section break is appropriate in those instances. Note also that if you want to inset text on a page, you want to change the paragraph indents, not the margins.Different Orientation. If you need to mix pages that have a portrait orientation with those that have a landscape orientation.Columns. You can use Word's newspaper column feature in the middle of a page, and place Section breaks before and after the multiple columns. If you have text prepared and put it into a column format, word will automatically put in the Section breaks.Document protection. You can apply different protection levels to different Sections in Word. This lets you allow editing in some Sections and not others.Restart Page numbering. You can restart page numbering anywhere in a document by inserting a section break.Start Section on Odd-Numbered Page (or Even-Numbered Page). You can tell Word to start a section on an Odd- or Even-numbered page. Word 2007 - 2013 put the controls for breaks under the Page Layout tab under "Breaks" not on the Insert tab. When you do NOT want or at least need a Section Break
Here is an excellent summary image on some of what sections control: How to view a Section BreakPractice: Inserting a Section break
Change Page Formatting in a Specific SectionPractice: Change Page Formats in Sections Warning If you do not apply the Section break to "this Section only" the whole document will be formatted in Landscape.
Start a Section on an Odd-Numbered- (or Even-Numbered-) Page
Note The Header and Footer toolbars are identical in Word 97 and Word 2000. It looks a little different in Word 2003 (below). CK Note: If you Edit the Header or Footer the formatting starts with a blank area using the Header and Footer paragraph styles. The basic Header and Footer styles have tab settings for a Center tab at 3" and a Right tab at 6.". These are based on 1.25" margins. You can easily view these settings by showing the Ruler (View -> Ruler). If you want to change the appearance of all of the headers and footers in a document, modify the Header and Footer Styles. Your author tends to have headers and footers extend outside the page margins by half an inch and be in Italic using a different font. I use sanserif fonts for headers and footers and serif fonts for body text. This is intended to emphasize that the headers and footers are outside of the body, a textual frame for the page. Practice: Use the Header/Footer Toolbar Note If you want to add the word "Page" or dashes on either side of the number, you can type the information before inserting the page number.
There are a number of useful AutoText fields available using the Header/Footer Toolbar. It is important for you to remember that this is really an "AutoText List Field" and as such it is sensitive to the style of the paragraph. If somehow your style gets changed to anything other than the "header" or "footer" style many of your favorite AutoText entries will seem to have vanished! When you paste something into a header or footer, you may want to use Edit => Paste Special... => Unformatted Text so that you don't change the style in your header or footer by mistake. The header and footer styles also have special tabs set that are especially useful in these contexts. (See the practice above.) Word 2007 - 2013 put the controls for the Headers and Footers under the Insert tab. Different First PageWord 2007 - 2013 put the controls for page numbering under the Insert tab. Different options are presented and you can also get a dialog box using the Format Page Numbers button. Practice: Turn on Different First Page
Different Odd and Even{IF{=MOD({PAGE},2)}= 1 {PAGE}} - odd numbers{IF{=MOD({PAGE},2)}= 0 {PAGE}} - even numbers Here the second {PAGE} field in each is what you want to appear on that page. As written, these are for page numbers, but could be used for entire headers and footers as shown below. (Field codes by Paul Edstein) Have a Header and/or Footer Appear Only on the Last Page or on Certain Pages Without Using a Section Break
Header and Footer Placement and Space
Header and Footer Confusion?
Page Numbers in Word 97-2003
Fields
Page X of Y
Format Page Numbers
Same As Previous / Link to Previous Tip It is usually better to start at the top of your document when working with Headers and Footers. Warning Word's default is to always make the Header and Footer of a new Section the Same as the Previous Section. Turn off Link to Previous first, or else your changes can affect other Sections. CK Note: How many Sections do you need? If you are inserting a Section break just to change the text in your header / footer, look into use of the StyleRef field with Word's built-in heading styles. This lets you change the content of your header / footer without making any change in the header / footer. The StyleRef field can reflect the content of the latest heading or other style and change each time you format something new with that Style. Note each Section in Word can have up to three headers and three footers. The choices of different first page, different odd and even apply to both headers and footers for each Section. The setting for link with previous is independent for each of these, that is, the first page header can be linked to previous while the first-page footer is not and neither setting has any effect on the settings for the odd or even page headers and footers. A document can have both Portrait and Landscape pages with Headers/Footers in one document.
Headers and Footers with Multiple Orientations in One DocumentCK Note: Page Numbers. There are two places you can put page numbers: in the header/footer, or in the document. If you put them in the document inside a frame using the Insert > Page Number command, you can never get proper control of them. This is the greatest trap there is for inexperienced page-numberers. The page number MUST be inserted into the header or footer! If your document already has page numbers, click on one. If it shows the square bounding box of a floating frame, it’s in a frame: delete it! John McGhie, How to Create A Template. I have gone so far as to remove the Page Numbers... command from my Insert Menu in Word 97-2003! An alternative simple way to insert a page number is Alt+Shift+P which will insert a page number field without a frame. See How to Control Page Numbering in a Word Document by Bill Coan. This is an excellent article on formatting page numbers and manipulating them with calculation fields. For more information on using chapter numbering, see http://wordmvp.com/FAQs/Numbering/ChapterNumber.htm. For more information on numbering appendixes, see http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/numbering/NumberingAppendixes.html. Formatting Page Numbers Practice: Format Page Numbers
Having Portrait-oriented headers/footers on a Landscape Page When a page is in landscape mode, the headers and footers are also in landscape mode. There are times when the writer wants to have the headers/footers stay in the same place on the physical page rather than rotate with the page content. This portion arose out of a question asked on the Microsoft Answers site and three solutions were given.
How to Put a Portrait Page Number on a Landscape Page by Bill Coan, MVP, Dave Rado, MVP, and Suzanne Barnhill, MVP Word 2010 Tutorial on Headers and Footers Headers and Footers in Word 2003 - From Basic to Elaborate - a Tutorial Columns (CK Section)
Practice: Formatting Columns
Printing a Range of Pages With Multiple Sections - CK noteTo print page 1 of Section 3, you would enter p1s3To print pages 1-1 and 2-2, you would enter p1s1,p2s2To print pages 1-3 in the first Section, you would enter p1s1-p3s1To print all of Section 4, you would enter s4To print a range of pages across Sections, you would enter p5s2-p3s5 Use your Status Bar to see what Section you are in. If it isn't showing Sections, right-click on it.
See this Microsoft Help article for more. Watermarks in Word 2003 (CK Note)Rule #1: If they can see it, they can copy it.Rule #2: If they can copy it, they can modify it. Send as pdf and it will be harder to remove than than in Word format. Convert it somehow to a jpg and it becomes even more difficult. You can print and use a scanner to do this. You could, then, insert that jpg into a Word file. That said, there are some things that you can do in Word. Watermarks in Word are dimmed images in the header or footer. They have a "watermark" tag on them so that they can be manipulated using the Watermark feature. You can create your own non-Word watermark by inserting your own image in a header or footer. Then it can't be minapulated using the Watermark commands. You can create a watermark in Word, then copy the image to the clipboard and delete the watermark using the watermark command. Then re-insert the image (in the header). You can protect the document for filling in forms or otherwise restrict editing, there are ways around these, though. You can use a macro to limit access to the header. However, that only works if the recipient allows macros to run. Most do not. See also No Copies - No Editing - No Changes
Page Margins (CK Note)
Page Borders can be Section properties
Which Word Features Create Section Breaks Automatically?Change Columns for less than the entire document (Continuous Section breaks)Creating / updating an Index does thisChange Margins for less than the entire document (Continuous Section breaks)Change Orientation for selected text (Next page section break) Which Section am I in?
Trouble Shooting Sections, Headers and Footers, Page NumberingChange Margins (not Indents, Margins)Change the Page NumberingChange Page OrientationChange Column Arrangment Another way to end up with a lot of Sections is by working with a converted document (i.e. Word Perfect, pdf, OpenOffice, Scanned Text) or text copied from a converted document or from a Web page. The conversion software aims to make a document in Word that looks like the original. However, there is no conversion software that handles Section formatting at all well, as far as I know as of January 1, 2014. This includes documents that started as Word documents, were converted to pdf, and then converted back. The conversion software can make every change or even apparent change in paragraph indents as a margin change. You can end up with a three-page document with fifty Sections! If you want to edit such text, you are often far ahead by simply copying as plain text and doing your formatting using Styles to duplicate the original formatting. Missing Sections - Ghost headers and footers - Page Number mysteriously restarts
I know I can have a different header/footer on the first page of my document / Section. Can I have a different one on the last page?
I made a change in my Section 2 Header / Footer and the Section 1 Header / Footer changed too.
I added a next-page Section break to my document. It should have been a continuous Section break instead. How to Delete a Next-Page Section Break That Won't Delete (and retain formatting)
Recap of Header/Footer settingsThis is confusing. This is because it really is complex to allow users the flexibility they need. If you don't need that complexity, probably you will never see it.To understand what is happening in headers and footers you need to know about Sections and Section breaks. Header and footer coding is stored in the Section break that follows the Section. You probably want to turn on display of non-printing formatting marks or work in normal or draft view so you can see Section breaks. Show non-printing characters. Section breaks do not always start a new page. Section breaks may be inserted by Word without notice when you change columns, margins, page numbering, or page orientation within a document. There are four kinds of Section breaks; the most common are continuous and new page. The other two start a new Section on either an even-numbered or an odd-numbered page. The blank page that can be generated by such a Section break will not have Headers or footers; it will be a blank page. If you need Headers/footers on these pages, Microsoft recommends insertion of a manual page break immediately before the Section break to force a blank page with Headers/footers. Otherwise, see John McGhie's article: Create a non-blank, even-numbered page at the end of a chapter. Manual page breaks do not change Header/footer settings. New-page Section breaks can, as can continuous (no new page) Section breaks. (All Section breaks carry Header/footer settings.) Every Section will have three different Headers and three different footers even if you never see them. Because of this, and because there can be multiple Sections on a single page, it may be easiest to temporarily expand each Section to at least three pages (to see the First-Page, Even-Page, and Odd-Page Headers and footers. This way you can see what is in each Header/footer and what the settings are. You can temporarily expand the number of pages using manual page breaks (Ctrl+Enter) Section formatting is contained in the Section break that follows the Section. If you delete all Section breaks you can find in a document your formatting will be contained in the last paragraph mark in the document, which is the last Section break. If there is a Section break on a page, changes to the Header/footer that follow that Section break may not have any effect on the Header for the page that contains the Section break. (Those settings or changes are stored in the next Section break, the one governing that Section.) Whether changes to the next header change the previous one depend on the Link-to-previous setting of the next header. If you have a Section break on a page, the header and footer for that page will be governed by the settings for the first Section on that page, even if that Section contains no text (i.e., the page starts with a Section break). The Link-to-previous setting is specific to the type of Header/footer: Primary Header, First-Page Header, and Even-Page Header, Primary Footer, First-Page Footer, Even-Page Footer. Link to previous is the default setting. Link to previous is specific to Headers and footers (can be different). It is also specific to each type of Header/footer. That is, the first-page Header can be linked to previous but not the first-page footer and not the even-page Header. The Link-to-previous setting can be set for each Header/footer in every Section after the first. This setting can be different in each type of Header / footer in each Section. Since each Section has three different Headers and three different footers and the link to previous setting is specific to the type of Header or footer, each Section can have up to six different link-to-previous settings. This is true even if the Header/footer to which it applies is not visible. This is true even if the Section involved is a continuous Section in the middle of a page and has no Headers or footers displayed. The different-first-page setting covers both Headers and footers and is a Section (not document) setting. This setting is carried over into a new Section started from a Section set for different-first-page. Different odd and even covers both Headers and footers and is a document (not Section) setting. Enabling this for the first time renames each "header" into the "odd-page header" and each "footer" into the "odd-page footer." The even-page headers and footers will now be displayed. They will normally be blank and you will have to add content. Each Section can have different settings for the distance from the edge of the page for the Sections Headers and footers. The default is .5 inches. Size: The page layout settings reserve room for headers and footers. Even if there is no header or footer, that reserved space will not be filled by the body text. However, if you put more in a header or footer than the space reserved, the body text will not overwrite it. The header or footer will be allowed that space. This includes space-after or space-before formatting of the line closest to the body text. Copying and pasting content: Since the three headers and three footers in a Section are independent of one another it is often easiest to copy from one and paste in another if you want to have the same content. I.e. you want your first-page footer to be the same as the odd-page footer. If you do this, turn on display of non-printing formatting marks and delete the extra paragraph mark after you paste. See also: Quick Reference Card for Headers, Footers and Page Numbers See also: Using Headers and Footers by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP - excellent and comprehensive web pageWhat Happens When You Start a New Section? What Gets Carried Over?
|