Creating headers and footers

Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 2.x

Chapter 6: Getting Started with Writer

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• The Writer workspace
• Creating a new document
• Saving a document
• Working with text

• Cutting, copying, and pasting text
• Moving paragraphs quickly
• Finding and replacing text
• Inserting special characters
• Inserting dashes and non-breaking spaces
• Setting tab stops and indents
• Checking spelling
• Using AutoCorrect
• Using word completion
• Using AutoText
• Inserting notes

• Formatting text

• Using styles
• Formatting paragraphs
• Formatting characters
• Autoformatting
• Creating numbered or bulletted lists
• Hyphenating words

• Undoing and redoing changes
• Tracking changes to a document

• Recording changes
• Accepting or rejecting changes and comments

• Formatting pages

• Choosing a layout method
• Creating headers and footers
• Changing page margins

• Numbering pages

• Including the total number of pages
• Restarting page numbering
• Changing the format of page numbers

• Creating a table of contents
• Creating indexes and bibliographies
• Printing from Writer

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Headers are portions of a document that always appear at the top of a page; footers appear at the bottom of a page. Typically, headers display the title or chapter name of a document.

To insert a header, click Insert > Header > Default (or the page style, if not Default) as shown below.

File:HeaderFooter.png

Inserting headers and footers.

Similarly, to insert a footer, choose Footer.

Depending on which option you choose, an area will appear at the top or bottom of the page where you can enter text. This text will appear at the top or bottom of every page.

Items, such as document titles, chapter titles, and page numbers, which often go into headers and footers, are best added as fields. That way, if something changes, the headers and footers are all updated automatically.

Here is one common example. To insert the document title into the header:

1. Select File > Properties > Description, enter a title for your document in the Title area, and click OK to close the dialog box.
2. Add a header (Insert > Header > Default).
3. Place the cursor in the header part of the page.
4. Select Insert > Fields > Title. The title should appear on a gray background (which does not show when printed and can be turned off).
5. To change the title for the whole document, choose File > Properties > Description.

Fields are covered in detail in Chapter 14 (Working with Fields) in the Writer Guide.

For more about headers and footers, see Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) and Chapter 6 (Introduction to Styles) in the Writer Guide.