Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Formatting a Cover Page.

Formatting a Cover Page

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 13, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

If you are writing a report, you will probably want to create a cover page. In some word processors, this would be done as a separate file. You can also use this approach in Word, but you can also format a cover page as part of the document containing the report. This is done by making the cover page one section and the rest of the report another section. To do this, follow these steps:

At the beginning of your document, enter the information you want for your cover page. Don't worry about formatting yet; just enter the text.
Position the insertion point at the beginning of the report, but after the cover page information.
Select Break from the Insert menu. Word displays the Break dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Break dialog box.

Click on Next Page.
Click on OK.
Format the text in your cover page as you desire. You can even change headers, footers, and page margins. (If you change the page layout, make sure you only apply the changes to the section you used for your cover page.)

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (959) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Formatting a Cover Page.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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