Creating a page header in Word

A reader writes to ask:

Please could you explain how, using MS word, I can use a header like the one on your manuscript of The Normal Guy? Each time I try it will only let me have EITHER the name of the book OR automatic page numbering, not both.

I suspect the problem you're having is because you're trying to create the header and set the page numbering separately. when they need to be done together. Follow along with the steps below and we'll get it straightened out for you.

(By the way, these instructions will work for Microsoft Word 2010. Word 2007 works in a somewhat similar fashion, but earlier versions of Word will be quite different.)

To create your header, the first thing to do is to place your cursor somewhere on the second page of your document. (This is important because we don't want the header showing up on the first page of the manuscript.)

Click Insert from the top menu to switch to the Insert ribbon. Click the Header item, then click Edit Header way down at the bottom of the pull-down menu that appears. This will open the Header & Footer Tools ribbon.

In this ribbon, click the checkbox labelled Different First Page. This prevents your header from displaying on the first page of the manuscript. In the box labeled Header from Top, you can also set the header to display 1.0" from the top edge of the page, if you like.

Now you're ready to create the content of your header. Hit the Tab key twice to set your header flush to the left margin. Type "Surname / Keyword / " (though you should of course type your own surname and a keyword from the title of your work). With the cursor still at the very end of that line, click the Page Number item in the ribbon. Click Current Position in the pull-down menu, then click Plain Number from the submenu that opens. This inserts the current page number into your header for every page on which it displays.

Finally, click the big red X in the ribbon to close the Header & Footer Tools ribbon, and you're done!

At least, you're done if this is a short story manuscript. For a novel manuscript that has a separate title page, there's still one more step. Click Insert again to switch to the Insert ribbon (if you're not already there). Click the Page Number item, then click Format Page Numbers from the pull-down menu. A dialog box will pop up. Click the Start at radio button to set the number for the title page. Enter 0 in the box and click OK.

This sets the number of the title page to 0 so that the first page of your text will display a page number of 1.


Crossposted from Proper Manuscript Format

Microwaves ruin everything

The wonderful video below reminds me of a good story about a microwave oven. Two microwave ovens, actually. But watch the video first, before I tell it. Don't worry, I'll wait.

Wasn't that awesome? Especially the metal stuff. I used to have a girlfriend who would put metal in the microwave all the time. Spoons, aluminum foil, whatever—she wouldn't bother to remove any of it before nuking her food. I'd tell her that was a bad idea, a dangerous idea, but we had the kind of relationship where anything I said was considered silly and untrue just by virtue of my having said it, no matter that it was easily verifiable by checking with any other human being on the planet.

This was 1998. We lived together, and eventually the very bad breakup that had been coming for a very long time was upon us. Our microwave over was very old and very primitive, and my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend had at last saved enough money to buy the kind of very advanced, fancy new microwave she'd been dreaming of for a very long time. She didn't even take it out of the box when she bought it. It was going to be a housewarming gift to herself in her new apartment in her new city, and she was graciously leaving the old crappy microwave behind for me.

One evening shortly before her moving date, I arrived home from work to find the apartment filled with the unmistakable acrid smell of an electrical fire. I hurried into the kitchen. The inside of the crappy old microwave was blistered brown. Stalactites of melted plastic hung from the ceiling of the oven chamber.

She didn't want to tell me what had happened, but it came out soon enough. She had put a container of leftover Chinese takeout in the microwave to warm it up, but hadn't removed the wire handle from the carton. Before long the electricity arcing from the wire had started a fire.

No one was hurt, and nothing was damaged besides the carton, the Chinese food, and the oven itself. And that is how I got in the last word on the subject of putting metal in the microwave.

Oh, and it's also how I got the fancy new microwave as a parting gift. It's nice to be taken seriously.


Crossposted from Inhuman Swill