It may not be obvious when you open a new Excel spreadsheet on-screen, but the software offers many ways to customize your documents. By adding a header to a spreadsheet, you can follow a format that lets you insert a company name, author and other data you don't want mixed into the actual grid. The header won't affect any macros or calculations you assign to the grid cells, but tops off a printed page, portable document format file (PDF) or shared spreadsheet with extra information.
Step 1
Launch Microsoft Excel. To add a header to an existing spreadsheet, click "File," select "Open" to open the spreadsheet. Alternately, Excel will open a new, blank spreadsheet automatically.
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Step 2
Click the "Insert" tab. Click the "Header & Footer" button on the ribbon. Note that when it first appears, by default, the header does not span across the entire page. It is centered in the middle of the spreadsheet. A green "Header & Footer Tools" tab also appears on top of the ribbon.
Step 3
Click into the header and begin typing, such as the name of the report, the company name or the date and other information. Note that as you type, the header box will stretch and begin to span across the spreadsheet.
Step 4
Highlight the header text you just entered. Click the "Home" tab, then use the options on the ribbon to change the header's font, color, size, position and other layout as preferred to match your corporate or documentation style preferences. This is optional.
Step 5
Click anywhere on the spreadsheet to exit the header edit mode and return to spreadsheet mode, where you can begin to fill in the grid or add to an existing one.
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