Let’s get started with…
Sections & page borders
Sections
Sections are a way of dividing a document into different parts that can have
different formatting, layout, or page settings. For example, you can use
sections to create different headers and footers, columns, margins, orientation, or
paper size for different parts of your document.
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To use sections, you need to insert section breaks where you want to start a new
section. There are four types of section breaks:
Section Break Description
Type
Next Page This starts a new section on the next page.
Continuous This starts a new section on the same page.
Odd Page This starts a new section on the next odd-numbered page.
Even Page This starts a new section on the next even-numbered page.
You can insert section breaks by going to the Layout tab, clicking on Breaks, and
choosing the type of section break you want. Above the section breaks you will also
find the different types of page breaks:
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!
For once, we will not be editing this Let’s get started
document. Starting on the next page you will still find
guided instructions, but this time you will need to apply
them to the document titled Red Cross you can find on Toledo.
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AUTOMATIC SECTION BREAKS
Sometimes Word will add section breaks automatically without you noticing. A few
examples:
Columns
Try it!
1 Select the text underneath the subtitle 2.4.1 Process (up until the subtitle
2.4.2). In the Layout tab select Columns in the Page Setup group and select 2
columns.
2 Select the text below 4.6 Stem cells from the blood?. This time select More
Columns. Choose 2 columns and add in line between the columns. The distance
between the columns has to be set to 1 cm.
3 Turn on the hidden symbols . Check the 2 sections where you applied the
columns. Without you noticing continuous section breaks have automatically
been added before and after the text you selected.
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Page layout
Try it!
1 Select the entire page Part 5 You want to donate?
2 Open the Page Setup settings in the Layout tab. Change the Page Orientation to
landscape for the selected text.
3 Automatically a section break (next page) has been added:
4 Place your cursor before the text of the subtitle 5.2 Opening hours and add in
a Page Break. There are several ways to do this:
- In the Layout-tab underneath the Breaks command in the Page Setup group.
- In the Insert-tab in the Pages group.
- Using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Enter.
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HEADERS & FOOTERS
When working with headers and footers you can apply different contents or
formatting for each section of your document. By default all sections are linked
though, which means that you can select any header or footer you want, the
changes you make will be applied to the entire document. We will show you how to
work with different headers & footers in an example in our Red Cross document:
Try it!
1 Go to the start of the document and open the header (double click somewhere
in the top margin). You will notice the header will show you which section you
are in:
2 In the Header & Footer tab click on Next in the Navigation group:
3 After clicking on Next you will jump to the next section. Which will be the 7th
page of the document where you added in columns earlier.
4 Click on Previous to return to the first section of the document.
5 Add in a plain Page number on the top right of the page. And apply a bottom
border for your header.
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6 Did you notice? From the moment you added the page number to your header,
the Red Cross logo disappeared. When using the built-in page number tool,
you are essentially applying a premade format for your header. This
will replace everything that was already added to your header (or
footer). Let’s undo the previous step. Use the Keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z until
the Red Cross logo returns to your header. We will be adding the page numbers
again, but this time manually using the Fields option in the Quick Parts feature.
7 Place your cursor in the header and press the tab key twice. By default there
are three tab stops in place in your headers & footers. One on the left side, one
in the center and one on the right. When you press the tab key twice your cursor
will be located at the far right.
8 While your cursor is still in place on the right tab stop of your header, navigate to
the Header & Footer tab. Choose Quick Parts in the Insert group and select
Field… to insert a field. Another way to get here is via the Insert tab > Text
group > Quick Parts > Field… . A new dialog box will pop up.
Fields?
Fields are placeholders that can insert dynamic data or information into your
document. For example, you can use a field to insert the current date, page
number, file name, or document property. Fields are updated automatically when
you open, save, print, or switch to print preview mode of your document.
9 In the Field window you have a long list of Field
names you can choose. This time we are looking for
the Field to add in a Page number. When you select
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a field in the list, a description of that field will appear at the bottom. For
example, NumPages seems like a good guess to add in page numbers. Select
this field and read the description:
10 As you could see, NumPages was not the field we were looking for, it would
have displayed the total amount of pages in the document instead of the current
page number. The field we are looking for is simple called Page. Select it in the
list of field names and click on OK. A plain page number will appear where our
cursor was located (at the right tab of our header). Next, add in the bottom
border again.
11 In the Header and Footer tab use the Next command to navigate through all
of the sections of the document. As you can see our page number and bottom
border has been added to the entire document. There is one small hiccup
however: The page number in section 6, this is the section where we placed our
pages in landscape orientation, is not located to the far right of the header:
12 Luckily there is a way to fix this, when using sections we can change the
header for section 6 only, without the other sections being adjusted. But here
comes the tricky part: we first have to unlink section 6 from the other sections,
to make sure our changes won’t be copied to the other headers of the table.
Here is how to do this:
While your cursor is still located in the header of section 6, navigate to the
Header & Footer tab and uncheck the Link to previous option.
13 Thanks to your previous action, any changes to section 5 will not be copied to
our landscape pages in section 6. The next part of the document however,
section 7, will follow all of the changes we add to section 6. Navigate to section
7 using the Next command and uncheck the Link to previous option again. Now
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section 6 (the landscape pages) is completely unlinked from the rest of the
document.
14 Finally, we can make changes to the header of section 6. Move the right tab
stop to the right until it’s against the right margin of the page. Remember, you
can do this by selecting the right tab icon in the ruler and dragging it to the
right.
In a correctly formatted document, the title page and the page containing the table
of contents never have headers or footers. We will need to unlink these pages and
remove the contents of headers on these pages. Follow these steps:
15 Place your cursor in front of the very first title Part 1 Donating Blood at the
top of page 4.
Add in a section break: Next page. At first glance you will not notice any
differences, turn on the hidden symbols and have a look at the bottom of the
table of contents on the previous page: a Section Break (Next Page) has been
added.
16 Go to the header of page 4. You will now notice that page 4 is now the start
of the second section. Unlink this header from the previous.
17 Navigate to the previous section, section 1. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A
to select everything in section 1 and delete it.
18 Result: the header for the first few pages will be blank. The headers starting
on page 4 have retained the Red Cross logo, page number and bottom border:
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EVENLY DISTRIBUTED COLUMNS
When adding columns to a section of your document, it often happens that the text
is not evenly distributed across all columns. This can result in a less attractive page
layout. Here’s how to fix this:
Try it!
1 Select the text underneath the title 7.3 What’s in store for me? And add in 2
columns. The text is not evenly distributed:
2 Place your cursor at the end of the second column. Add in a continuous section
break. This will automatically distribute the text over the 2 columns:
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ADDING HEADINGS TO YOUR FOOTERS / HEADERS (STYLEREF)
In professional documentation you will often find the title of the current chapter in
the header of footer of the page. We can use the Fields… option in the Quick Parts
feature again to add this to our document.
Try it!
1 Go to the headers & footers and navigate to the footer of section 2.
2 Important! Even though we had already unlinked the header of section 2 from
the section 1, the link is still in place for the footer. Unlink the footer of
section 2 from the first section.
3 Open the Fields… dialog box.
4 Select the field StyleRef. With this field you can add in the text that is formatted
in a certain style to your footer. In this case we want to link the style Heading 1.
Select Heading 1 in the middle, underneath Field properties you will find a list of
all of the available styles.
5 Scroll through the document, for each page the current chapter title will be
displayed in the footer, except for the first section because we unlinked that
specific section.
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A DIFFERENT FIRST PAGE FOR A SECTION
In the Header & Footer contextual tab that appears when you are inside of a header
or footer, you will notice the Options group. One of the options is the possibility to
have a different first page for a section.
You would choose the option Different first page for a section in Microsoft Word if
you want to have a different layout or content for the first page of a section, such as
a cover page, a title page, or a page with a different margin or orientation. For
example, you might want to have a different footer for the first page of a chapter
that shows the chapter name instead of the page number. To do this, you would
need to enable the Different first page option for the section and then edit the
footer of the first page separately from the rest of the pages in the section.
Try it!
1 Go to the headers & footers and navigate to section 2 (page 4).
2 Activate the option Different first page. You will notice the title of the section has
changed to First Page Header/Footer of section 2.
When you scroll a page further down the header and footer are still named
Section 2:
3 You probably also noticed an issue: By activating this option the contents of
the header and footer have disappeared from the first page of the section.
When working with sections, always remember to first apply your section-options
before adding contents to your headers and footers to avoid mistakes or having
to do things twice.
For now we will quickly copy and paste the contents of the header and footer of
the next page to return our header and footer to this first page of the second
section.
Place your cursor in the First Page Header of Section 2.
Uncheck Link to Previous in the Navigation group.
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Navigate to the Header of section 2 (page 5). Place your cursor inside of this
section header and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A to select the entire
header and use Ctrl+C to copy the contents.
Navigate back to the First Page Header of section 2. Use Ctrl+V to paste the
header back.
Do the exact same thing for the Footer of the first page of section 2.
4 Now that our header and footer are back in place we will add something new to
the First page Footer of section 2. Place your cursor in the right margin of the
footer (use tabs to get there).
5 Use the Fields… feature to add in the name of the author. Her name should be
Pascale Marichal. Check your document, the name of the author should only
appear in the footer of the first page of the second section (page 4).
6 Click on the File tab and choose Info.
7 On the right you will notice the name of the author of this document (Pascale
Marichal). Right click this name and choose Remove person. Next add yourself
as the author and return to the document.
8 Because you are using a field, the information gets automatically updated. In
this case your name should have appeared in the First page Footer of section 2.
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DIFFERENT SECTIONS FOR ODD AND EVEN PAGES
The Different Odd & Even Pages option in the Header & Footer tab allows you to
create separate headers and footers for odd-numbered and even-numbered pages.
You might use this option if you want to have different information or formatting on
the left and right pages of a book, such as page numbers, chapter titles, or images.
For example, you could use the different odd & even pages option to put the page
number on the outer corner of each page, and the book title on the inner corner.
When your document has been printed the page numbers will always be on the
outside of the page.
Try it!
1 Go to the headers & footers and activate the option Different Odd & Even Pages.
The names of all of your headers & footers will now show if the page has an odd
or even number:
2 Now combine everything you have learned in this chapter: make sure all pages
have their page number on the outside of the document in the header and the
Red Cross logo on the inside. In the footer, the titles of the chapters (the
StyleRef field you added earlier) should be displayed on the inside of the page.
The name of the author (which is only displayed on the first page of the second
section) should be on the outside of the page.
In other words: even pages have the page number on the left, the logo and
chapter title on the right. For odd pages it’s the exact opposite.
3 Here are a few screenshots of the desired end result:
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Page borders
We have used borders for a paragraph or table in the past, but you also have the
option to add in a border to your entire page. You can find this option in the Layout
tab inside of the Page Setup options. In the dialog box that appears you will find a
Borders… button in the bottom right corner of the window. A new window will pop-
up with three tabs: Borders, Page Border and shading. The borders and shading
are options you can apply to a certain paragraph, the page border tab will add in
borders to the entire page(s).
Try it! Add in a page border for this page. You will have to add in sections to make
sure the page border only appears on this specific page. Choose a blue page border
with a double line style and a width of ¾ pts. There is a distance of 30 pt between
the edge of the page and the page border.
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