To edit a footer in Word, double-click the bottom margin of a page, change the footer text or fields, then choose Close Header and Footer or press Esc. Save the document after checking the result. If the change appears in other sections, those footers are linked; turn off Link to Previous in the section you want to make different.
- Open the document and double-click the footer area near the bottom of the page. You can also choose Insert > Footer > Edit Footer.
- Replace or format the footer text. To add a page number, use the Header & Footer tab’s Page Number command rather than typing a fixed number on every page.
- Choose Close Header and Footer or press Esc, then save the document. Closing the editor is separate from saving the file.
To show the current date in the footer, follow the header and footer steps in our guide to inserting the date in Word.
Click in the first page of the section you want to change. If there is no section boundary yet, insert Layout > Breaks > Next Page at the start of that section. Open its footer and select Link to Previous to turn linking off. Then edit that section’s footer. Headers and footers have separate links; changing one does not unlink the other.
If you need to change just one page in the middle of a document, isolate it with section breaks before and after that page, then unlink the relevant footer in the new section and the following section as needed. For the full procedure, see different footers in Word.
For a cover page, Different First Page may be simpler than adding sections. Different Odd & Even Pages creates separate footer types for facing pages. Word links each matching footer type independently between sections, so check the correct footer if the result still repeats.
Microsoft’s editing guide, section footer instructions, and Link to Previous explanation cover these controls.
Matt has been writing about Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft products since the days of Windows XP. He spends much of his time writing for sites like WindowBrain.com