How to Insert a Header in PowerPoint – Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

The terms Header and Footer often originate from word processing programs like Word and they represent the repeating elements that will be displayed at the top and bottom of each page in the document. And in PowerPoint, Header and Footer also work in a similar way, where the process of inserting a Header in PowerPoint or inserting a Footer in PowerPoint is also performed in a similar manner.

Normally, the Footer area consists of three placeholder parts including: Date, Footer (You can add a message, company name, or anything you want to display on all slides here) and finally Slide number, similar to the image above.

By default, the Footer will have one or more than three placeholder parts that will appear on every slide in the presentation, but you can change that according to your requirements. You can also move the content in the Footer area to the top of the page and by inserting a Header in this PowerPoint, you can immediately change the Footer to Header, like in the image below.

In this tutorial, FPT Shop will guide you in detail on how to insert a Header in PowerPoint on slides with flexible customization capabilities, depending on your needs.

How to Insert a Header in PowerPoint

Step 1: Open the presentation that you need to know how to insert a Header in PowerPoint. Then on the ribbon toolbar, click on the Insert tab.

Step 2: Under the Insert tab, click on the Header & Footer button under the Text feature group on the right side of the ribbon.

Tip: You can also click on the Date & Time or Slide Number buttons also under the Text group. Both buttons let you access the Header & Footer dialog box. This is also one of the quickest ways to insert a Header in PowerPoint.

Step 3: In the displayed Header and Footer dialog box, make sure that the Slide tab is selected because the options you choose or uncheck on this tab will only affect the slides you see on-screen, not the printed slides.

To understand better how to insert a Header in PowerPoint, you need to know what options are available in the Slide tab of the Header and Footer dialog box provided by PowerPoint:

A. Date and time: Check this box to insert the date into the slides. You can choose to insert an automatically updated date and time with the Update Automatically option. Or select Fixed depending on your usage needs.

• Update Automatically: If you choose this option, from the drop-down menu, select the date format (or date and time). You can even choose language type and calendar, changing these options may display different options in the drop-down list.

Note: Language type and calendar options may be grayed out if you haven’t installed multiple language spell checkers in PowerPoint, but if you have installed additional language, both options will be available as illustrated below.

• Fixed: Choose this option and enter the exact date you want to insert into PowerPoint, as in the image below. By default, the date will update to the current date but you can enter any date as desired and it will remain the same regardless of any editing or sharing of this presentation with anyone and anywhere.

Tip: If you choose the Fixed option, you can insert any other content here even if it’s not a date format.

B. Slide number: Check this box to enable displaying the slide page numbers on the slides.

C. Footer: When this box is checked, it will display the content into the footer on all slides of the presentation. Also, when this box is checked, the box below will be activated for you to enter the content of the footer section. Depending on usage needs, users can enter any content, it could be a copyright notice of the slide when you share it.

D. Don’t show on title slide: This checkbox will enable the selected options on all slides except the title slide.

Step 4: Now you need to apply the options you have made. To do that, there are two options in the Header & Footer dialog box which are:

• Apply to All: Click this button if you want to apply the Header & Footer settings to all slides in your presentation.
• Apply: Click this button to apply the Header & Footer settings to only the slide you’re currently setting up.

Step 5: Go back to your PowerPoint presentation, save your slideshow to complete the process of inserting a Header in PowerPoint.

If you want to insert Header, Footer into Note in Handouts, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open the presentation that you need to know how to insert a Header in PowerPoint. Then on the ribbon toolbar, click on the Insert tab and then click on the Header & Footer button in the top right corner.

Step 2: In the displayed Header & Footer dialog box, click on the Note and Handouts tab. Then click on the Header option just below. Now to perform how to insert a Header in PowerPoint, simply enter the title content you want to display above, finally click the Apply to All button to apply the settings to all slides and finish.

Step 3: To see how the settings of how to insert a Header in PowerPoint work, go to the View tab on the ribbon toolbar, then click on the Notes page button under the Presentation Views group.

Conclusion 

In this article, you have just learned in detail how to insert a Header in PowerPoint. It is hoped that when you need to display important information right at the title in each slide of PowerPoint, you can use the above method of inserting a Header in PowerPoint and follow the instructions to achieve quick results.