Often company letterhead templates are designed to contain pre-filled header and footer content with a company logo, sample starter text, and custom page settings like margins. These templates are typically no more than 1 page long since limited content is pre-typed in the body. A particular dilemma that may stump you is how to have different settings on Page 2 and all subsequent pages. For example, you might like page numbers to be visible starting with Page 2. You cannot rely on the standard method of checking the box for “Different First Page” for the new header and footer content because you don’t have a Page 2 in the template. Another dilemma is figuring out how to set a new margin settings for Page 2 and beyond. If you use your “standard go to method” of changing margins by adding a section break, the end user may not know how to work with the section break and they may inadvertently delete it. To implement both of these types of setting changes as text spills beyond Page 1, I am going to show you some simple work-a rounds.
How to change template Header & Footer content for Page 2 and beyond:
To have different Header & Footer content for page 2 and beyond, the technique is pretty straight forward. Just add enough placeholder content to generate page 2 and turn on the “Different First Page” checkbox. Luckily, once you proceed to set different content for the header and footers content of Page 1 and Page 2 and then, delete the placeholder content in the main body to get back to one total page of content, Word remembers the new Page 2 Header and Footer settings when the template content reaches two page length or more.
The specific steps are as follows:
- Add enough dummy content to the body of the document so that Page 2 is created. A quick way to do this is by typing in =rand(8,6) followed by hitting enter. This creates 8 paragraphs of random text with 6 sentences in each paragraph.
- Click into the Header. Put a check-mark in the Different First Page checkbox.
- Add the Header and Footer content desired for Page 1. For example, add company logo, company name, and address,
- Add the Header and Footer content desired for Page 2. For example, add page numbers to the footer.
- Delete the dummy placeholder text.
- Do a quick test by adding dummy placeholder text back in to see if Word retains the knowledge of different Header and Footer content for Page 2 and beyond.
How to make template Page Margins different on Page 2 and subsequent pages:
The workaround to get a different top margin on Page 2 and beyond is pretty slick. The top margin for Page 2 and subsequent pages will be controlled by the Margin settings set for the overall document on the Layout tab. The top margin will be different on Page 1 by using the trick of adding a text box to Page 1 header. This text box forces the body text to start lower on Page 1, thus in effect giving “the look” of a bigger top margin on Page 1.
Use these steps to accomplish this:
- Complete the steps #1-5 in the previous section because it is important to have the setting of Different First Page turned on.
- Change your document margins to what you want for Page 2 and beyond by the normal method of going to the Layout tab and clicking on the Margins button. Select either a built-in set of margins or go to Custom Margins and set the particular ones you want.
- Go to the Header of Page 1. Add a Text box to the header that has a Wrap Text setting of “Top and Bottom”. Set its width to around 8.5″. Give the text box a height that makes it block enough of the upper region of the page so that the typing of the text in the body is exactly where you want the text for Page 1 to start. Finish by making the text box hidden by removing its outline/border. Choose a fill color of “No Fill” so any graphics behind it will be seen.
The end result is that you have sneakily used the text box to falsely create the look of a bigger top margin on Page 1.
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