In a tip we published about overflowing text, headers, and footers, a reader asked:

My "perfect document" was created defining the first page as "Section 1" and the second page as "Section 2."

The problem is that when I start typing in page 1 and I exceed the available space, Word creates automatically a second page that still belongs to Section 1 (and therefore has the Section 1 heading/footer) instead of using the already existent Section 2 for the text that did not fit in Section 1.

Office Letter reader Haig Johnson suggests the following procedure:

To create a template with a different first page header/footer follow these steps:

1. Open a new document.

2. Insert a manual page break (Ctrl + Enter) or Insert/Break/Page Break.

3. Open File/Page Setup, on the "Layout" tab under "Headers and Footers" select "Different first page."

4. Create you headers/footers for the first page (it will be labeled "First Page Header").

5. Create a header/footer on the next page (it will have no label).

6. Delete the manual page break (to show the page break press Ctrl + Shift + 8 or Ctrl + *).

7. Save the document.

This works on my Office XP Word.

Reader Lou Melton came to much the same conclusion, but his use of random text helps you better visualize the document. He suggests the following steps:

1. Open a new template file.

2. Set up Page Layout as Different First Page, apply to whole document.

3. Select View-Header/Footer, switch to footer and insert footer for page 1. Close Header/Footer.

4. Go to top of template document.

5. Insert random text into the template (type the following: =rand(5,25) then press Enter, which will make the template 2 pages).

6. Select View Header and Footer. Go to page 2, insert desired info into header and/or footer. Close header/footer.

7. Delete random text.

8. Save Template

To keep page one's text restricted to page one, so that there's no flowing of text to page two, TOL reader Terry Farrell suggests:

He could use a fixed, borderless frame on page 1 (with locked anchor, exact size, and positioned relative to the page). The text would not spill onto page 2, but it would disappear below the bottom of the frame. The excess could be retrieved by selecting all text in the frame and reducing the font in 1 point increments " press Ctrl + [ until the contents fit.

It is a very dirty solution, but I cannot think of anything else to stop the text from spilling to the next page.

Alternatively, consider using a single celled table, as Bill Coan suggests:

A borderless, single-cell table with the row height set to an exact amount under Table>>Properties would also do the trick.

By the way, Bill's wordsite.com sells the slick document automation tool DataPrompter (see our review at http://www.officeletter.com/blink/dataprompter2003.html) that's worth checking out.

The Office Letter is a weekly e-mail and online newsletter offering tips, tricks, and techniques for Microsoft Office. It offers shortcuts, explores features, and boosts productivity with hands-on how-to information for Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and more.