Insert a header?

[martinee]

This might sound dumb, but bear with me. How do you go about inserting a header into a word document? Generally I go to View|Headers and Footers etc..., but on one particular document, it will not show my headers or footers. I've tried everything I could think of, but nothing seems to work. This is a document that several people have worked on, so I'm not sure if someone "disabled" headers by taking some action. If I revert to the original version of the document, the header is inserted just fine, it is only in the final version it will not show any headers or footers. Any ideas? Thanks.

[Deb G.]

Well, you have the right sequence of events to create a header/footer. I'm trying to understand exactly what you're working with. First, when you say your document doesn't show the header/footer, do you mean on your screen only? Have you tried printing the document?

Second, I take it you are using a document that has "track changes" on. Has a previous editor deleted the header as part of their revisions? This could explain why the original version shows the header and the final version doesn't (although you should be able to "see" where they have made that deletion).

Lastly, from the Word Help files:


Make sure that you're in print layout view. Headers and footers appear only in print layout view and in printed documents. Headers and footers do not appear or print in Web layout view or in browsers.

When you save your document as a Web page, the headers and footers no longer appear or print. However, they are retained in the Web document, so they appear when you go back to the .doc format of the document. If you’ve created a Web page that uses frames, you can also create a header or footer by adding a header frame or adding a footer frame.

[martinee]

You are correct in saying this is a document with "track changes" on. Upon reviewing the changes, I only see one reference to headers and footers, and it was to insert one. Yet I still see no header or footer. Yes I am still in the print layout view, and still nothing. It seems more that it is not even there rather than me simply not being able to see it.

The only thing I can think of is that the person who created this document apparently didn't know about bullets and numbering options, and so they manually inserted about 20 "tab" marks on the ruler so they could manually create an outline. But I really don't think that should cause headers/footers to disappear.

Any other thoughts? Thanks.

[Deb G.]

This is weird. It must have something to do with the track changes because you have noted that you can see them in the original document.

You're right about the tab marks - they shouldn't affect the header.

When you say that in the final version you can't see the headers, do you mean that you have accepted all changes or are you just viewing the "final" document as opposed to "final showing markup"? I'm asking because I wonder if you can put a header into the document once all the changes are accepted and track changes is turned off.

At this point, I would be trying anything. Also, is it possible to copy it into a fresh blank document to see if that will work? Sometimes a document can get "buggy" from being used and abused (!) too many times. Just a thought.