XL2000: Left and Right-Aligned Header/Footer Text Ignores Margins

When you print your worksheet, headers and footers that you have applied to the worksheet may be printed outside of the margins that you have set for the worksheet.

In Microsoft Excel, the header and footer on your worksheet always use a left and right margin of 0.75 inch. Because of this functionality, left-aligned text in the header or footer always begins printing 0.75 inches from the left edge of the page, regardless of the left margin setting. Similarly, right-aligned text always begins 0.75 inches from the right side of the page.

Although you cannot change these margins, you can create wider margins by adding extra spaces to the header or footer (padding).

To pad the left header or footer, you can add spaces before the text. However, because the right header or footer ignores trailing spaces, you must use a nonbreaking space to allow the spaces to be maintained when you add them to the end of your footer.

To pad the right header or footer with spaces, follow these steps:

1. On the File menu, click Page Setup.
2. Click the Header/Footer tab, and then click Custom Header or Custom Footer.
3. Type the text or control codes that you want to appear in the header or footer, followed by space characters to pad the text on the right.
   
   NOTE: The spaces do not appear at the end of the text.
4. To enter a nonbreaking space, press and hold down the ALT key and type 0160 on the numeric keypad.
   
   NOTE: Press the NUM LOCK key to make this procedure work. Typing 0160 inserts a nonbreaking space at the end of the right header or footer.

The spaces at the end of the text string should now appear and are applied to the printed output.

NOTE: When you print to legal size paper, left-aligned text in the header or footer prints approximately one inch from the left side of the page. This is to allow for the limitations of the LaserWriter printer when printing to legal size paper.