Removing Header and Footer Sections

[Gary]

I am using Microsoft Word 2007 and received a resume document (in Word 2007
..docx format) from someone that I wish to change somewhat in order to create
my own resume.

The problem I am encountering is the two page resume document has header and
footer sections on both pages that I need to remove to make my changes. I
can remove the actual header and footer text (by clicking "Header - Remove
Header" and "Footer - Remove Footer") but am unable to remove the Header and
Footer SECTIONS in the document.

Can anyone help me with this? Thanks in advance.

 

[Lene Fredborg]

I am not sure I understand your description correctly. If you by “remove the
Header and Footer SECTIONS†mean that you want to reduce the space taken up
by the header/footer areas, you can do so by reducing the size of the top and
bottom margins (Page Layout tab > Page Setup group – click Margins and select
Custom Margins to open the Page Setup dialog box – alternatively, click the
little arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Page Setup group). The margins
can also be changed by dragging the gray “margin markers†in the vertical
ruler.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word

 

[Gary]

To clarify, when I click on the top and bottom of each page, a light blue
tab will appear and "Header -Section 1-", "Footer -Section 1-" will be
written in these light blue tabs. Can I just get rid of these header and
footer areas completely as opposed to just not having any text or objects in
them (having the sections blank). Or are Word 2007 documents automatically
formatted to include header and footer sections and the best I can do is
reduce the size of these sections?

It seems to me there would be alot of instances where a person would create
a Word document that did not require headers or footers. So why can't these
sections just be removed from the document, if not required?

 

[Graham Mayor]

If you don't enter anything in the header/footer view there will not be a
header/footer. The limits of the page are set by the page margins (within
limits set by the printer driver). You cannot simply remove the function to
include a header footer simply because you don't want to add anything to it.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

 

[Lene Fredborg]

You cannot remove the header and footer. They are part of any document and
really useful for different purposes such as holding content to be repeated
on every page (e.g. logo or page number). This is _not_ new in Word 2007.

If you wish, you can try to set the top and bottom margins to 0 (zero).
However, your printer will most likely not be able to print to the edge of
the paper anyway so most likely a message will tell you that the value is not
OK – if you click “Fix†in the message, you find the smallest amount you
printer can handle). A document with text from the very top to the very
bottom would not look very well.

If your problem is that you do not want the header/footer areas to take up
room on the screen in Print Layout view, simply position the cursor on top
edge of a page. Double-click when it looks like a two-headed arrow. This will
collapse the header/footer of all pages (actually, double-clicking this way
toggles the setting Office button > Word Options > Display category > Show
white space between pages in Print Layout view).

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word

 

[Gary]

OK, I think I get it now. I had Word 2000 before I upgraded to Word 2007 a
few months ago and I don't remember seeing header and footer sections
automatically inserted into the document which became visible when you
clicked on the top or bottom of the page. Seemed to be something new, so
maybe it was introduced with Word 2003.

At any rate, I think I solved my dilemma by clicking the header and footer
sections and changing the "Header from Top" and "Footer from Bottom" height
to 0".

Doing this seems to work for me. Thanks for the help.

 

[Sally]

Sally replies - open up the header and/or footer, delete data in the box,
reduce the size of the box and then close. The header and/or footer will not
appear on your document.

 

[kj]

I found a way around having to change margin settings and it seems to work
every time.

The trick is that you HAVE to actually be in the header or footer field for
it to work. Turn on Show/Hide so you see paragraph marks and go into the
header field or footer field. If there is text to delete, highlight it,
delete it then click on the Close Header/Footer button in the Header/Footer
Design Tab. The last paragraph mark in the header should become the first
paragraph mark in the body AT the top of the page. If you DON'T open the
header area and just hit the delete header key, the last paragraph mark still
holds the space for a new nonexistent header.

If just the paragraph mark is there, highlight it and click the close header
button, you may have to do this a few times to get it to disappear, but it
will happen. Again, if you just hit Delete, it won't work so make sure to
use the Close Header/Footer button.

KJ