The Header Or Footer Is Missing Or Only Partially Printed In MS Word XP

Headers and footers are great for defining content in your document that needs to be repeated on every page. Title, author information, and page numbers are typical examples of header and footer content. It can happen though that your header or footer content is only partially printed when you actually send the document to the printer.

One of the most common reasons for this is that the content in the header or footer has been placed outside of the printable margins for the printer. Every printer has a certain range it can print on the page. And although you would expect the whole page to be printable, that is not the case for all printers. Laser printers do generally have a larger printable area than inkjet printers for example.

Only if the printer specification indicates “Borderless printing” as an option, will the printer be able to print of the full page.

Most vendors have specifications of printable areaas for their printers. Here is an example for HP. The printer driver will make sure that Windows (which als means MS Word) will learn about the capabilities of the printer, including the printable area.

Fix the Missing Header and Footer

The way to solve this is to make sure that the offset from the edge for the header and footer are configured properly. That means the offset from the edge will bring the header and footer within the printable area for the printer.

Here is how to make sure the header and footer are not partially printed:

1. Check the printer manual to see how close to the edge of the paper the printer can print. If you don’t have the manual, you can find the printer manuals online for most printers.
2. In Word, click File menu, and select Page Setup option.
3. Click the Layout tab.
   
4. Look for the Headers and footers section, and then enter values in the Header and Footer fields that are larger than the printer’s minimum margin setting.
5. Click OK button.

Use the Preview option to to check if the header and footer are within the printable area.

Also see:

• Headers and Footers on Odd and Even pages in Word.
• Header or Foter missing on first page.