Add Headers and Footers to Slides in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

The terms Header and Footer typically come from word processing programs, these denote repeated elements that show at the top and bottom of every page. Headers and Footers work similarly on PowerPoint slides, the Footer is a line of text that usually appears at the bottom of a slide, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Footer in PowerPoint

Typically, the Footer area includes three placeholders:

1. Date
2. Footer (You add a message, a company name, or anything you want to be visible on all slides here)
3. Slide number

By default, the footer with one or more of these three placeholders appears on every slide in a presentation, but you can change that as required. You can also move the content within the Footer area to the top of your slide, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2. By doing so, you change a Footer to a Header!

Figure 2: Footer moved to the top of the slide

In this tutorial, we'll learn how to make Footers (or Headers) visible on your slides:

1. Open the presentation where you want to add a Header or Footer. Choose the Insert tab of the Ribbon, as shown in Figure 3 (highlighted in red).
2. 
   Figure 3: Insert tab of the Ribbon
2. Within the Insert tab, locate the Text group, then click the Header & Footer button (highlighted in red within Figure 4).
3. 
   Figure 4: Header & Footer button
4. You can also click either the Date & Time or Slide Number buttons, they all end up summoning the same Header and Footer dialog box!
3. You'll see the Header and Footer dialog box, as shown in Figure 5.
4. 
   Figure 5: Slide tab within Header and Footer dialog box
5. Make sure that the Slide tab is selected within the Header and Footer dialog box, so that the options you select or deselect will only affect the slides you see onscreen rather than your printed handouts. All these options are explained below, as marked in Figure 5:

A. Date and time

6. Select this check-box to make the date appear on your slide(s). Then choose whether you want the Date and time to Update Automatically, or set them to Fixed:
7. i. Update Automatically: Select this radio button and then open the drop-down list (see Figure 6) to choose a date (or date and time) format. You can even choose the Language and Calendar type, changing these options may show different options within the drop-down list you see in Figure 6.
8. 
   Figure 6: Date (or date and time) format drop-down list
9. Note: The Language and Calendar type options may be grayed out if you don't have more than one proofing language installed for PowerPoint 2010 (and Office 2010), once you have additional languages installed, both these options will be available as shown below in Figure 7.
10. 
    Figure 7: Adding date and time formats for foreign languages and calendars