Scenario
You have a long document, or a large one filled with lots of big images, a mix of landscape and portrait pages, lots of section breaks, etc. You need to do stuff in the headers and footers (add/remove text, shift tabs, insert page numbers, adjust page margins etc.), but skipping from one header/footer to the next takes longer than you’d expected.
Solution
Hide the main document while you’re working in the headers/footers. You should find that you can skip between them really quickly once you do that. Turn on the document display after you’ve finished making your header/footer changes.
Here’s how:
Word 2003
- Double-click in the header or footer to open it and display the Header Footer toolbar.

Word 2003 Header Footer toolbar
- Click the Show/Hide Document Text icon to hide the main body of the document from view.

Show/Hide Document Text icon
- Use the ’skip’ and ’switch’ icons to move backwards and forwards through the headers and footers, and to quickly switch from a section’s header to its footer and back again.

Skip and switch icons
- When you’ve finished making your changes to the headers/footers, click the Show/Hide Document Text icon again, then return to your main document.
Word 2007
- Double-click in the header or footer to open it and display the Header Footer Tools > Design tab.

Word 2007: Header Footer Tools > Design tab
- In the Options group, clear the Show Document Text check box icon to hide the main body of the document from view.
- Use the Navigation group icons to move backwards and forwards through the headers and footers, and to quickly switch from a section’s header to its footer and back again.
- When you’ve finished making your changes to the headers/footers, select the Show Document Text check box, then click the Close Header and Footer icon to return to your main document.
| Has this tip helped you? saved you time? saved your skin? You can thank me by clicking on the cup and buying me a coffee. (An E-Junkie shopping cart page will open where you can pay for my coffee via PayPal.) |














