Define first page header/footer in Word 2011 for Mac
It took me quite a while to find the corresponding options in Word 2011 to make the first page header/footer behave differently than the others. But I found it at the end by sheer luck after having it circumvented through another option. And no, there’s no ribbon bar option like in Word 2010… 😉
In the Menubar go to: Format -> Document
There select the Layout tab.
Select Different first page.
That’s all folks! 😉
Update
It’s even easier: When you double-click to edit the header, the header/footer ribbon appears. And there you can make the same choice as above by selecting Different first page.
Public Memory 
Wow thank you! I was trying to figure this out for a while 🙂
THANK YOU SO MUCH, JUST SAVED ME FROM GOING CRAZY@!!!!
Thank you!
I think that Microsoft is on a mission to make Word and Excel more and more counter-intuitive. How pathetic.
That’s fantastic! So easy. I’ve been trying to figure this out for awhile. You saved me a whole lotta time. Thanks!
Good grief, I was about to tear out my hair, thanks for posting, you are a life saver!
Word 2011 is very counter intuitive.
Because of you, my paper was the only one to have this done the right way in class. Even my teacher couldn’t find out how too. #Winning
I was ready to scream! Thank you SOOOOO much!!
God bless you
Oh my goodness! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Pitty, it doesn’t work with me, but what works is entering different headers for even and uneven pages …
I did that. I am trying to only have a header of the 1st of 3 pages. When I tried your suggestion, it removed the 1st page header and inserted into the 2nd and 3rd pages. AAAACCKKK!! Pls help!
Simply delete the header/footer from the normal pages and add it to the first page…
Thank you!!!
Yep! I figured it out yesterday after posting this question. i am new to MAC but that was pretty much a big fat DUH! on my part! Thanks for your help~
You’re welcome! 😉
Thanks so much. Saved me from wasting even more of my afternoon on trying to find the non-existent “options” in the Document Elements tab.
I could kiss you right on the mouth for this! All Microsoft products are so UNuser-friendly – you just saved me hours of work. THANK YOU!!!!!!
Thank you so much!!
Thank you so much for posting this!! 🙂
Even after reading your solution I wasn’t getting it, and I was feeling like I wanted to throw my MAC to the wall. I tried again, and finally got it. I happened to understand their logic, and its the stupidest logic they could’ve come out with for such function. Could they not put an option that reads FIRST PAGE ONLY HEADER?!!?!!?!?! Steve Jobs!! do not leave us hanging!
I totally agree! But it is Bill Gates you should yell at, not Steve Jobs. His Microsoft Office products have been riddled with problems the past few years, (not to mention making a doc into a pdf when it has section breaks!)
THANK YOU…. you save me soooo much hassle i always have trouble remembering and finding it every time
is there any way to keep the page number on the first page while having the header different on the first page? i have managed to have a different header on my first page, however my first page number disappears, help?
Just add the page number again on the first page. I assume it’s in a footer, so you need to add a first-page footer (just like the header)
bye
I had the same problem described by Sarah above … to add to your comment, I found that I couldn’t insert page numbers on the first page footer, otherwise it would blow out the suppressed first page header.
Instead, I went to the edit first page footer (I used the “edit footer” button that I dragged to my toolbar) and simply put in the number 1 on the first page, which allowed me to suppress the first page header but still have a page 1 on the document as well, with the header and footer for the following pages remaining intact.
THANK YOU, LIFESAVER!!!!!
Anyone know the answer to this question for Excel for Mac?
This is not possible afaik (maybe with some Makros), but what you can do is e.g. start with a higher page number (2 instead of 1) and create your first page in another excel sheet or in word or wherever you like…
Thank you soooooo much!!!!!! I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure this out and other help Web sites just describe the solution for PCs. My resume is finally looking better. 🙂
THANK YOU!!!
Select the Header or Footer (on any page). Click on Header and Footer, then check the box in front of Different First page
How is it that Word always manages to change (for the worse) the exact commands that I use most often?! Thank you so much for sharing your fix… I really appreciate it!
Thank you so much!!
My teacher yelled at me for not having this correct even though I told her ahead of time i did not know how to fix it. I told her I had a Mac and she said that was the problem. lol she also told me to buy a PC if a want to be successful in highschool. FML
If you don’t see the Header and Footer tab on the top of the ribbon, go to View (menu bar) –> header and footer, click it, then click on the header and footer tab that appears – tons of H&F options appear there, and you can click the “different first page” box.
This is the bit that was killing me. didn’t realise new tab appeared. thank you!!!!!
Like others said, I was about to go crazy. Thanks for this!
Brilliant! Thank you!
Thank you! I, too, was going nuts trying to figure it out. You saved me a bunch of time and my sanity!
I can’t even tell you how much continued frustration you saved me. I never would have figured that out. Thanks!!!
I can’t thank you enough for this!
from bottom of my heart, thank you.
wow…you really just saved me some sleep and time!!! thank you!!
You are swell, pubmem. This tip is a real public service. Are the Word for Mac people taking note? Their current procedure isn’t intuitive!
You got that right! It’s not only “un-intuitive,” it is downright difficult. And they don’t tell you how to do it in “Help.” Has anybody else noticed that Word’s “Help” is just useless lately?
You are a hero, thank you so much, you saved me a ton of time!
After all of the comments, I am not sure if I am missing this but……. I am trying to keep the header for the first 12 pages of my document and just delete it for the last 2 pages. I have to email my professor the doc. otherwise I would just print the last 2 pages with no header.
How can I make the first 12 pages of my document have a header and the last 2 not? Thanks in advance.
That’s quite easy actually:
Add a section break (next page) at the end of the last page that should have a header.
Then on the next page enter the header area and you’ll notice that it’ll have a number (something like “Header -Section 2-“). Select the active ribbon (Header/Footer) and unselect in the options pane the linkage to the previous section. That’s it.
Good luck! 😉
Thanks, ditto to what David above said : ) Saved me a ton of time. Usually it differentiates the first page automatically, but apparently when I inserted the header on the first page initially, it left me in a perpetual cycle of all-page-symmetry. Thanks for the quick and easy here.
OK.. some people have been successful in having the header show up on the first page only after experimenting. When I check “different first page” it deletes the header/letterhead completely on the first, second.. etc.. So please those who did figure it out: could you please give EXACT instructions how to save a template where the letter head (header) only shows for the first page and not for successive pages? If that is impossible… how does one get rid of the header from the pages that follow the letterhead? (using a template)
Thank you. Almost give me headache just to find this simple thing.
Thank you soooo much! New to office for mac and this was found after an hour of searching the web trying to format my paper for apa properly
YOU ARE WONDERFUL & A BLESSING !
Thank You. For the life of me, I don’t know why Microsoft made this formatting more difficult to figure out! I have been trying everything to figure it out, and “Help” is absolutely useless after Word 2004. I wish Word 2004 would come back, it was so much more user-friendly.
Thank you so much!!!!
I LOVE YOU…thank you so much for this!!!!
OH MY GOSH! YOU are such a LIFE SAVER! I was going insane trying to find this out!
Thank you a million times over!! This was impossible to find! Where do I give you my credit card #?! 🙂
THANK YOU!! Been struggling with this! grr! it was so easy!
thanks a ton!!!!that was so helpful! i was also struggling to find this out!!
Hy, i am traing to make a book, and i want to make a diffrent header like that the 1,3,5, ..etc the same header and 2, 4,6,8,… another header! can you help me? I work on imac office 2011!
You seriously don’t want to write a book in Word. Take a look at LaTeX or some other more professional tools than Word.
Concerning the different header, right under the “different first page” option described in the article you can choose to have different headers for odd & even pages.
how, i d’ont figure how
can you do a video to share to us how it is done?
Well, you enable the checkbox. Then you double click at the header of an odd page and format it to your wishes. Then you double click at the header of an even page and format it to your wishes. And that’s all there is to say about that.
Even after checking this box my header will change to the last thing I’ve typed in the header box… It’s as if I have no option for different first page and it’s merely an illusion.
Try it in an empty/new document and you’ll see that it’s not an illusion. 😉
THANK U!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow. I was getting frustrated. Such a simple thing, but so well hidden! Thanks a million.
Thankyou – I was getting so frustrated trying to figure this one out.
Simon Maselli
Advisor, Leader, Change Agent
Metamorph | 1300 916 082
Further to this one – I’m having difficulty trying to figure out why Word decides to add an extra line into my header and repeat the page x of y on an additional line. Any tips?
Hey, thanks so much! I kept finding and losing this function in three different recent versions of Word. BTW, for PC users, this is a no-brainer in WordPerfect, my word processor of choice for 25 years.
Can you imagine how many tens of thousands of work hours each year that MS has wasted of its customers’ time by simply “forgetting” to tell us how to do this in the Help screens, or failing to put the function on the “ribbon” !
As mentioned in the update, it is on the ribbon as soon as you’re editing the header/footer.
I do this but still get the header and footer appearing on subsequent pages. Driving me crazyyyyy!!!
HOLY HECK! Thank you so much!
This was so great!
Even a few years later : THANK YOU SO MUCH
Thank you!!
I still can’t remove the header & footer from my new section. There does not seem to be any delete header or footer from section command. I have deselected link to previous and it is now a new section but as per the section break but I cannot delete them no matter where I look. I am clearly missing something and I am a self confessed idiot with computers but I am at a loss
Thank you! I appreciate you posting this.
Thank you a million times. Now if I could just figure out how to leave footers as page numbers throughout the whole document, and the header only on the first document!
Thank you very much
Thank you very much for this! For whatever reason, I don’t have a “different first page” checkbox option in the Document Elements ribbon (Inconsistencies in Word? Nahhhh…)
did not help us at all. Tried both double clicking on the header but there is no option to select different first page. Neither is there the option for documents under format. We have excel 2011 for mac? Very confused
Word != Excel
This information is for Microsoft Word documents, NOT Excel. That might be your problem.
Thanks for the help but I have one other problem. The header I need is an image about 2in high. When I set the header to the first page and the type goes down to the second page, the margins are the same as the first page. I go to set the margins on the second page from this point on and it changes the margins on the first page. Any chance you know how to fix this? Thanks in advance.
Thank you SO MUCH!!! I have been struggling to find this for the last year!
Thank you SO MUCH!!!!
And today still topical 🙂 Thank yoy very much !
Thanks, I never noticed the extra tab!
THANK YOU.
Thank you! That was simplistic, and way better than Microsofts instructions or the Mac instructions…Awesome.
Is there a way to make each page behave differently? I would like to have a different footer on every page?
Yes you can since you can have individual header/footer with every page break (even paragraph break). You just need to ensure that you uncheck “same as previous”. But it’s going to be a lot of error-prone manual work and is thus an abysmal idea imho.
Thank you!
I have version 14.6.5 of excel for Mac 2011. Clicking on the “Format” tab in the menu bar, there is no “Document” to click on. Just Cells, Row, Column, Sheet, Conditional Formatting and Style.
You do realize that this post is about Word and not Excel? 😉
Does anyone know how to make the footer begin on the 3rd page instead of 2nd?
I love you! Thank you so much! You saved my sanity!
Thank you dude. Microsoft dropped the ball and you picked it up!