Header And Footer Options In Design Tools In Excel

Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Deleting a Header or Footer.

Deleting a Header or Footer

If you want to delete the headers or footers defined in your document, follow these steps:

Position the insertion point in the section that has the header you want to delete.
Display the Insert tab of the ribbon.
In the Header & Footer group, click either Header or Footer, depending on which one you want to delete. Word displays a drop-down list of options.
Click Edit Header or Edit Footer, depending on which tool you clicked in step 3. Word displays the header or footer along with the Header & Footer tab of the ribbon (Design tab in older versions of Word).
Select the contents of the header or footer.
Press the Del key, or press Ctrl+X.
On the Header & Footer (or Design) tab of the ribbon click on Close Header and Footer.

You may wonder why you don't just click Remove Header or Remove Footer, options available after you complete step 3 of these steps. The reason is simple—in my testing, clicking those options removes the header or footer text, but it doesn't remove the header or footer paragraph. Thus, if you have (for instance) a header or footer that includes a paragraph border, that border is still visible after you use the Remove Header or Remove Footer tools. The only way to get rid of the entire thing is to follow the steps as outlined.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6819) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Deleting a Header or Footer.

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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