Header Margins (Word 2007)

Topic

New Reply

I still don’t understand Word’s header/footer margins. I use WordPerfect and if I set the margins for .5″ for the header, it stays the same on each page with absolutely no hassle. I don’t seem to be able to accomplish that in Word. Header margins = .5″, document margins = 1″. Of course, on page 2, the header margins magically change to 1″.

HELP!!!!

Reply | Quote

Replies

Do you have a section break on page 1? Each section in a Word document can have its own margin settings. When you select File | Page Setup in a document with multiple sections, you can specify whether changes apply to the current section only or to the entire document.

Reply | Quote

Hans, I do have the margins set for “This Section” for both the header and the body. But page 2’s header has the wider body margins.

I’m sure I’m missing something obvious. The header contains our letterhead logo and address. It runs about 1-1/2″.

I’ve made up a dummy file with the identical margins etc. Maybe this will help you figure out where I’ve gone wrong.

Thanks, Hans!!!

Reply | Quote

Your document contains three sections since there are two continuous section breaks on page 1.
Each of the three sections has different margin settings:

Section	1	2	3
Top	0.25	1.00	0.25
Bottom	0.50	1.00	0.50
Left	0.50	1.00	1.00
Right	0.50	1.00	1.00
Header	0.25	1.00	0.25
Footer	0.50	1.00	0.50

The header and footer use the settings of the section at the top of the page. So the header and footer on page 1 use the settings of section 1, and the header and footer on page 2 use the settings of section 3.
Section 3 has left and right margins of 1″.

Reply | Quote

I don’t get it. What should I be doing so the header is the same on page 1, page 2 etc?

Where did section 3 come from?

[on edit] How should I be setting up the header initially so that it repeats exactly the same on every page?

And, I suppose, how do I ensure that the body of the document has the margins I intend which are different from those in the header?

Thanks!

Reply | Quote

I already explained why there are 3 sections: because there are two continuous section breaks on page 1. Why? I don’t know, I didn’t create the document.
The easiest way to see the section breaks is in Normal view.
If you don’t need the section breaks, you can delete them.
If you want to specify margins for the entire document, make sure that the “Entire document” is selected in the “Apply to” dropdown in File | Page Setup.
The header and footer use the same left and right margin as the body of the document, but you can set the left and right indent for the Header style (and for the Footer style) – this indent is added to the margin set in Page Setup. A negative value for the indent acts as an “outdent” i.e. outside the page margins.

Reply | Quote

I think I have it.

I changed the margins to whole document, clicked in the header, moved the margin markers to the margins I wanted, selected the whole header, then used the outdents to move the text to the “new” left and right margins.

So far it seems to work.

Sorry for being so frustrated with this. You do such a wonderful job of clarifying things and helping me out. I really appreciate it.

Now, I’ll cross my fingers and see if this works for page 3 – IT DOES!!!!!!

Your halo is shining very brightly!!!!

Reply | Quote