The header and footer information always gets printed automatically with every page that you print. Webpage URL, title, page number, date and time or some other information right on top (or bottom) makes up the header-footer information.
Sometimes we might need it but usually we don’t. Both Internet Explorer and Firefox make it easy to remove or include this header-footer information.
Here’s how to do it:
Removing header and footer information in Internet Explorer
Select Print Preview from the File menu on the menu bar. The Print Preview window has a ‘Turn headers and footers on or off‘ button on the top. Toggle that to switch the visibility of the header and footer.
The changes in the Print Preview window are temporary and will remain only as long as the window is kept open. To permanently customized our print jobs, we need to head over to Page Setup.
Adjusting header and footer information in Internet Explorer
Modern browsers provide us with a lot of customization options and IE8 is no different.
Browse to the webpage you want to print.
Click on Page Setup from either the File menu or from the Printer icon drop-down menu on the menu bar.
In the Page Setup box click on the dropdown lists under Header and Footer and select what you want to print. If you want to exclude any header and footer field, select Empty from the drop-down menu. You can print or exclude information from the left, right or center positions of the page.
With Page Setup complete, all that is left is the final Print command.
Making your own header and footer information
A slew of simple ampersand codes let you add your own custom headers and footers. For a custom header or footer in Internet Explorer 8, click on one of the drop-down menus under Headers and Footers in the Page Setup dialog box, and then click Custom. In the Custom dialog box, type your own text along with these codes:
- Window title – &w
- Page address (URL) – &u
- Date in short format (as specified by Regional and Language Options in Control Panel) – &d
- Date in long format (as specified by Regional and Language Options in Control Panel) – &D
- Time (as specified by Regional and Language Options in Control Panel) – &t
- Time in 24-hour format – &T
- Current page number – &p
- Total number of pages – &P
- Right-aligned text (following &b) – &b
- Centered text (between &B&B) – &b&b
- A single ampersand (&) – &&
For example, if I want to show that I printed the page on a particular date, I can enter – &w By SumTips on &d.
Adjusting header and footer information in Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox follows the same path as IE. Access Page Setup from the File menu; go to the ‘Margins & Header/Footer‘ tab. Use the drop-down menus to select or remove the headers and footers of your choice – left, center or right.
Adding a custom field to the header and footer is slightly simpler than IE as no codes are involved. Select Custom from the drop-down menu and enter your desired text in the pop-up. You are done.
Some headers and footers like page numbers and dates are often essential. What we need to print or exclude depends on the content.