Creating a Footer

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 10, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Excel allows you to add footers to your spreadsheet. Footers are nothing more than repeating text that appears at the bottom of every page of your printed spreadsheet. The beauty of footers is that they only have to be defined once, and then Excel places them on your printed pages automatically. To define a page footer, do the following:

  1. Select Page Setup from the File menu. Word displays the Page Setup dialog box.
  2. Make sure the Header/Footer tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The Header/Footer tab of the Page Setup dialog box.

  4. Using the Footer drop-down list, select any of the predefined footers you want used with your spreadsheet.
  5. Click on OK to close the Page Setup dialog box.

If you don't like any of the predefined footers in Excel, or if you have special footer needs, you can create a custom footer. You do that by following these steps:

  1. Select Page Setup from the File menu. Word displays the Page Setup dialog box.
  2. Make sure the Header/Footer tab is selected.
  3. Click on the Custom Footer button. Word displays the Footer dialog box. (See Figure 2.)
  4. Figure 2. The Footer dialog box.

  5. In each of the three parts of the dialog box, enter the information you want to appear at the left, center, and right of the footer.
  6. When you are through defining your footer, click on OK to close the Footer dialog box.
  7. Click on OK to close the Page Setup dialog box.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2694) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Searching for Adjectives and Adverbs

Searching for different types of words in your documents is a nice thing to contemplate, but it is much harder to do in ...

Discover More

Making a Cell's Contents Italics within a Macro

You can use macros to process information in your worksheets. You may want to use that macro to apply the italic ...

Discover More

Keeping a Max Value in a Cell

Sometimes it is helpful to have a cell contain the maximum value that has ever occurred within changing data. This tip ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Creating a Header

When preparing your worksheet for printing, you may want to add a header that appears at the top of each page that you ...

Discover More

Default Headers and Footers

Changing the look of default headers and footers for your Excel workbooks.

Discover More

Last Saved Date in a Footer

When printing out a worksheet, you may want Excel to include, in the footer, the date the data was last saved. There is ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is seven less than 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.