A header is a little description that appears along the top of a page so that the reader knows what’s what. Usually, headers include the page number and a title. A footer is the same thing as a header except that it appears along the bottom of the page, as befits its name. To change headers or footers in the middle of a document, you have to create a new section. To put a header or a footer in a document, follow these steps:

1. Choose View -> Header and Footer. If you’re in Print Layout view and you’ve already entered a header or footer, you can edit it by double-clicking the header or footer text.

2. Type your header in the box, or if you want a footer, click the Switch between Header and Footer button and type your footer. While you’re typing away in the Header or Footer box, you can call on most of the commands on the Standard and Formatting toolbars. You can change the text’s font and font size, click an alignment button, and paste text from the Clipboard. Tabs are set up in headers and footers to make it possible to center, left-align, and right-align text. To center a header or footer, for example, press the Tab key once to go to the Center tab mark and start typing.

3. Click the Close button. To remove a header or footer, choose View -> Header and Footer or doubleclick the header or footer in Print Layout view, and then delete the text. Here are some header and footer features that may be useful to you:

 -  Inserting a page number: Click the Insert Page Number button on the Header and Footer toolbar (or press Alt+Shift+P). While you’re at it, you can type the words page and of and click the Insert Number of Pages button to list the total number of pages, like so: page 4 of 16.

 -  Inserting the date and time: By clicking the Insert Date and Insert Time button, you can enter the date and time at which the document is printed.

 -  Changing headers and footers from section to section: Click the Same As Previous button to change headers and footers (you must first divide the document into sections). Clicking this button again tells Word that you don’t want this header or footer to be the same as the header or footer in the previous section of the document. When this button is selected (down), the header or footer is the same, and the Header or Footer box reads Same as Previous, but when you click the button again to deselect it, the words Same as Previous don’t appear. You can click the Show Previous or Show Next button to examine the header or footer in the previous or next section and see what the header or footer there is.  -  Different headers and footers for odd and even pages: As explained previously in the section, “Setting Up and Changing the Margins,” documents in which text is printing on both sides of the page can have different headers and footers for the left and right side of the page spread. Choose File -> Page Setup or click the Page Setup button on the Header and Footer toolbar to open the Page Setup dialog box. Then, on the Layout tab, select the Different Odd and Even check box. The header and footer boxes now read “Odd” or “Even” to tell you which side of the page spread you’re dealing with.  -  Removing headers or footers from the first page: To remove a header or footer from the first page of a document or section, choose File -> Page Setup or click the Page Setup button on the Header and Footer toolbar. In the Page Setup dialog box, select the Layout tab, select the Different First Page check box, and click OK.

Adjusting the Space Between Lines

To change the spacing between lines, select the lines whose spacing you want to change or simply put the cursor in a paragraph if you’re changing the line spacing in a single paragraph (if you’re just starting a document, you’re ready to go). Then click the down-arrow beside the Line Spacing button and choose an option on the drop-down list. To take advantage of more line-spacing options, choose Format -> Paragraph (or select More, the last option on the Line Spacing button drop-down list). Then, in the Paragraph dialog box, select a Line Spacing option:

 -  At Least: Choose this one if you want Word to adjust for tall symbols or other unusual text. Word adjusts the lines but makes sure there is, at minimum, the number of points you enter in the At text box between each line.

 -  Exactly: Choose this one and enter a number in the At text box if you want a specific amount of space between lines.

 -  Multiple: Choose this one and put a number in the At text box to get triple-, quadruple-, quintuple-, or any other number of spaced lines. To quickly single-space text, click it or select it if you want to change more than one paragraph, and press Ctrl+1. To quickly double-space text, select the text and press Ctrl+2. Press Ctrl+5 to put one and a half lines between lines of text.

Creating Numbered and Bulleted Lists

What is a word-processed document without a list or two? It’s like an emperor with no clothes. Numbered lists are invaluable in manuals and articles like this one that present a lot of step-by-step procedures. Use bulleted lists when you want to present alternatives to the reader. A bullet is a black, filled-in circle or other character.

Simple numbered and bulleted lists

The fastest, cleanest, and most honest way to create a numbered or bulleted list is to enter the text without any concern for numbers or bullets. Just press Enter at the end of each step or bulleted entry. When you’re done, select the list and click the Numbering or Bullets button on the Formatting toolbar. Meanwhile, here are some tricks for handling lists:

 -  Ending a list: Press the Enter key twice after typing the last entry in the list. You can also choose Format -> Bullets and Numbering or right-click the list and choose Bullets and Numbering to open the Bullets and Numbering dialog box. From there, click the None option on the Numbered or Bulleted tab and click OK.

 -  Picking up where you left off: Suppose that you want a numbered list to resume where a list you entered earlier ended. In other words, suppose that you left off writing a four-step list, put in a graphic or some paragraphs, and now you want to resume the list at Step 5. Click the Numbering button to start numbering again. The AutoCorrect Options button appears on-screen. Click it and choose Continue Numbering. You can also open the Bullets and Numbering dialog box and select the Continue Previous List option button.

 -  Starting a new list: Suppose that you want to start a brand-new list right away. Right-click the number Word entered and choose Restart Numbering on the shortcut menu. You can also open the Bullets and Numbering dialog box and choose Restart numbering.

Constructing lists of your own

If those choices aren’t good enough for you, click the Customize button to open the Customize Bulleted List or Customize Numbered List dialog box. These dialog boxes offer opportunities for indenting numbers or bullets and the text that follows them in new ways. You can also choose fonts for the numbers and symbols for the bullets.

Working with Tabs

Tabs are a throwback to the days of the typewriter, when it was necessary to make tab stops in order to align the next item. Except for making leaders and aligning text in headers and footers, everything you can do with tabs can also be done by creating a table and it can be done far faster. All you have to do is align the text inside the table and then remove the table borders. A tab stop is a point on the ruler around which or against which text is formatted. When you press the Tab key, you advance the text cursor by one tab stop. Tab stops are set at half-inch intervals on the ruler, but you can change that if you want. You can also change the type of tab. By default, tabs are left-aligned, which means that when you enter letters after you press the Tab key, the letters move toward the right in the same way that they move toward the right when text is left-aligned. However, Word also offers right, center, decimal, and bar tabs. To change tabs or change where tabs appear on the ruler, start by selecting the paragraphs for which you need different tabs. Then click in the box on the left side of the ruler as many times as necessary to choose the kind of tab you want, and click on the ruler where you want the tab to go. You can click as many times as you want and enter more than one kind of tab. To move a tab, simply drag it to a new location on the ruler. Text that has been aligned with the tab moves as well. To remove a tab, drag it off the ruler. When you remove a tab, the text to which it was aligned is aligned to the next remaining tab stop on the ruler or to the next default tab stop if you didn’t create any tab stops of your own. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where tabs were put in the text. To find out, click the Show/Hide ¶ button to see the formatting characters, including the arrows that show where the Tab key was pressed.

Hyphenating a Document

The first thing you should know about hyphenating the words in a document is that you may not need to do it. Text that hasn’t been hyphenated is much easier to read, which is why the majority of text in this article, for example, isn’t hyphenated. It has a ragged right margin, to borrow typesetter lingo. Hyphenate only when text is trapped in columns or in other narrow places, or when you want a very formal-looking document. Do not insert a hyphen simply by pressing the hyphen key, because the hyphen will stay there even if the word appears in the middle of a line and doesn’t need to be broken in half. Instead, when a big gap appears in the right margin and a word is crying out to be hyphenated, put the cursor where the hyphen needs to go and press Ctrl+- (hyphen). This way, you tell Word to make the hyphen appear only if the word breaks at the end of a line. (To remove a manual hyphen, press the Show/Hide ¶ button so that you can see it; then backspace over it.)

Hyphenating a document automatically

To hyphenate a document automatically:

1. Choose Tools -> Language -> Hyphenation.

2. Select the Automatically Hyphenate Document check box to let Word do the job. While you’re at it, deselect the Hyphenate Words in CAPS check box if you don’t care to hyphenate words in uppercase. If the text isn’t justified that is, if it’s “ragged right” you can play with the Hyphenation Zone setting (but ragged-right text shouldn’t be hyphenated anyway). Words that fall in the zone are hyphenated, so a large zone means a less ragged margin but more ugly hyphens, and a small zone means fewer ugly hyphens but a more ragged right margin.

3. Having more than two consecutive hyphens on the right margin looks bad, so enter 2 in the Limit Consecutive Hyphens To text box.

4. Click OK.

Hyphenating a document manually

The other way to hyphenate is to see where Word wants to put hyphens, and you can then yea or nay them one at a time:

1. Select the part of the document you want to hyphenate, or place the cursor where you want hyphens to start appearing.

2. Choose Tools -> Language -> Hyphenation to display the Hyphenation dialog box.

3. Click the Manual button. Word displays the Manual Hyphenation dialog box with some hyphenation choices in it. The cursor blinks on the spot where Word suggests putting a hyphen.

4. Click Yes or No to accept or reject Word’s suggestion. Keep accepting or rejecting Word’s suggestions. A dialog box appears to tell you when Word has finished hyphenating. To quit hyphenating before Word finishes, click the Cancel button in the Manual Hyphenation dialog box.

Unhyphenating and other hyphenation tasks

More hyphenation esoterica:

 -  To “unhyphenate” a document you hyphenated automatically, choose Tools -> Language -> Hyphenation, deselect the Automatically Hyphenate Document check box, and click OK.

 -  To prevent a paragraph from being hyphenated, choose Format -> Paragraph, select the Line and Page Breaks tab, and select the Don’t Hyphenate check box. (If you can’t hyphenate a paragraph, it’s probably because this check box was selected unintentionally.)

 -  To hyphenate a single paragraph in the middle of a document maybe because it’s a long quote or some other thing that needs to stand out select the paragraph and hyphenate it manually by clicking the Manual button in the Hyphenation dialog box.