Repeat header row at the top of each page does not work as expected...

Anonymous
2013-10-27T14:55:55+00:00

I have tried to use the table properties option checkbox reading Repeat as header row at the top of each page, however, the header row just does not appear at the top of each page.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2013-10-27T15:23:13+00:00

To be a repeating header row, the row must be the first row of the table (multiple rows can be selected, but they must include the first and be contiguous. (Make sure, however, that you don't have the entire table selected when you designate a row as the header row.)

In addition, the table must have text wrapping set to None (Tabletab of Table Properties).

If the table contains a manual page break, the header will not repeat. You can, however, insert a page break without breaking the table by formatting a row as "Page break before" (on the Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog).

Note that this applies only to tables. If you want a page header, you need to add a header to the page itself.

Was this answer helpful?

400+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

45 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-11-29T03:50:37+00:00

    The effect you're seeing is the result of the one deep row (the middle page) trying to stick with the row on the following page, which is the effect of "Keep with next" in the deep row, just as I said.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-11-29T01:20:17+00:00

    Sorry, but that is not entirely correct.  While those settings may not prevent the row from breaking across a page, they can have other undesirable effects.

    The table in question has only two rows - the first row with the black background is set as the heading row to be repeated on each page.  The second row of the table is selected as indicated by the highlight.

    With Keep with next and Keep lines together, Word tries to apply those features to the point that it separates the second row from the first (even though it repeats the heading row on the next page) 

    The following screen shot shows the result of changing only the Keep with next and Keep lines together settings

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-11-28T23:24:55+00:00

    Hi Rich,

    It was nothing so mysterious (probably not the right word) in this case.

    There were two issues with the document:

    1. When a cell has vertically aligned text, the row cannot be set to break across pages, which, to me, makes sense and I believe is by design.
    2. While it did not occur with the document on my machine, when the Kylie removed the vertically aligned text, the Heading row appeared on one page and the next row of the table appeared on another.  The reason for this was that the text in that row had the paragraph formatting of Keep with next and Keep lines together.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2015-11-28T22:55:48+00:00

    Hi Kylie,

    I've seen this happen before, but not lately. I suspect it might have had to do with a problem in the XML code processing that Word does. In essence even though the top two rows of the table appeared "connected" and part of the same table, if you were able to write a VBA macro that counted how many tables there were in the document, it would return with a value of 2 rather than one. And if you had your VBA routine select each table it found in the document so you could visually see its selections, you'd see it identifying the first row of the table as one individual table and then the remainder of the table as another separate table.

    During the last number of months there were patches pushed down to all versions of Word involving tables and how the XML (which is the coding method of "docx" files) was dealing with compatibility among the code in the various versions. It's a long story but basically there were differences and this caused documents to open into "compatibility mode" on various systems. It involved tables and it caused problems.

    So I would ask...

    1. Are you running the most up-to-date patch level on your version of Word?
    2. Does the document in question show that it is in "compatibility" mode?
    3. What happens with the table's behavior if you convert the document using the Convert function that is on the File/Back Stage menu if the document is in compatibility mode?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments