Add Headers and Footers to an Excel Worksheet
July 31st, 2010 Filed Under Computer Tips
Printing documents in Excel isn’t as useful as printing documents in Word but you can still add headers and footers to your worksheets. In fact, adding headers and footers to Excel is about as easy as adding them to a Word document with just a few differences to overcome.
Headers and footers in Excel serve the same purpose as they do in Word. You can add page, numbers, author information, dates, and even custom text to an Excel worksheet in much the same way as Word. Read on to learn the ins and outs of working with headers and footers in Excel.
Add a Header to an Excel Worksheet
Suppose you have an Excel worksheet like the one pictured below. The worksheet spans multiple pages when printed and you want to add page numbers to the top of the page.
The easiest way to add page numbers to an Excel worksheet is to put them in a header. This way the page numbers will adjust automatically as new pages are added to the worksheet and others are deleted.
Begin by clicking on the Data tab on the Ribbon and locating a section of the Ribbon labeled Insert. Click on the button titled Header & Footer and Excel will change the view of the worksheet to Design view so you can see where the header and footer currently line up in the document.
The first thing you’ll notice about the header in Excel is that it is split into left, center, and right sections. By default, Excel starts you off editing the center section of the header. However, let’s say you want those page numbers to display to the right of the printed spreadsheet. Simply click the right section of the header to make it active.
Now that the right section is active, you need to add the page numbers much as you would in Word. On the Design tab of the Ribbon that is already active, locate a section labeled Header & Footer Elements. On this section, click on the button titled Page Number. You will notice that Excel places the text:
&[Page]
in the right section of the header. This is the code Excel uses to indicate that a dynamic page number resides in that location.
When you want to edit the footer of the worksheet, locate the section of the Design tab on the Ribbon labeled Navigation and click the button titled Go To Footer. Using this button and the button labeled Go To Header, you can switch back and forth between the two. You can edit the footer in an Excel worksheet the same way as we edited the Header above.
When finished editing the header and footer, click the Normal View button in the lower right hand corner of the application.
Before you finish, however, there are a few more advanced options available to you when it comes to displaying headers and footers in Excel. Next to the Navigation section of the Design tab on the Ribbon is a section titled Options. Here you can customize how Excel generates and displays the header and footer of your worksheet.
Different First Page – This option lets you display a different header and footer on the first page of your document than on the pages of the rest of the worksheet. Once you check this option, edit the first page’s header and footer as you want. Then, edit any header or footer other than the one on the first page to display what you want on subsequent pages.
Different Odd & Even Pages – This is useful if you want to print your worksheet book style and want page numbers, for example, to be at the left and right edges of the paper.
Scale with Document – This feature automatically increases and decreases the size of the header and footer to properly fit the page. Unless you are having a specific problem with the scaling of your header or footer, keep this option checked.
Align with Page Margins – As you change the page margins, this option changes the location of the header and footer to match the extremes of the margins. Unless you are having an alignment problem with your header and footer, keep this option checked.
Just like Word, you can add custom headers and footers to an Excel worksheet. Using some of the advanced options, you can even create a custom header and footer for just the first page or change them depending on whether they land on an odd or even page. Playing with these options can help you create a more convenient and professional looking spreadsheet printout.