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:
- Date
- Footer (You add a message, a company name, or anything you want to be visible on all slides here)
- 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:
- 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).

Figure 3: Insert tab of the Ribbon
- Within the Insert tab, locate the Text group, then click the Header & Footer
button (highlighted in red within Figure 4).
Figure 4: Header & Footer button
- You can also click the Date & Time or Slide Number buttons, to
summon the same Header and Footer dialog box!
- You'll see the Header and Footer dialog box, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Slide tab within Header and Footer dialog box
- 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
- 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:
- 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.
Figure 6: Date (or date and time) format drop-down list
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.
Figure 7: Adding date and time formats for foreign languages and calendars
- ii. Fixed: Select this radio button and enter a date in the text box, as shown in
Figure 8 below (highlighted in red). By default, this uses the current date, also the date remains the
same no matter when or where you edit or deliver your presentation.
Figure 8: Fixed radio button selected
Tip: If you choose the Fixed option, you can actually add anything else, even if it is not a date! Type whatever
you want to appear within the Date placeholder.
B. Slide number
- Select this check-box to enable the slide number to be visible on your slide(s). Learn more in our
Working with Slide Numbers tutorials.
C. Footer
- This check-box, when selected, makes the Footer visible on all the slides of your
presentation. Also, when this check-box is selected, the text box below gets activated where you can enter the content of the footer, as shown in
Figure 9. Typically, users like to type in stuff like Confidential, Draft, etc. in this area, or even copyright notices.
Figure 9: Add footer text
D. Don't show on title slide
- This check-box will enable selected options on all slides except the
Title slide.
- You can similarly add and edit Headers and Footers in your Notes and Handout pages. Look at our
Add Headers and Footers to Notes and Handout pages in PowerPoint 2010 to learn more.
- Now you need to apply the choices you made. Here you have two options:
- Click the Apply to All button to apply the Header or Footer to all slides in your presentation.
- Click the Apply button to apply the Header or Footer to just the active slide in your presentation.
- Save your presentation often.