Pages: Different Header on First Page

notpanic writes:

"Of note: it's important to have the text of the first page finalized before setting the second page as a different section.

If any edits made to the first page after setting the sections for different header/footer adjust the length of the text on the page, the text will not adjust from page to page.

The result is a large white space at the end of page 1 (if the text is shorter) or a page 2 with the page 1 overflow text and a lot of white space."

This is true, but is expected behaviour.

Page breaks are created in Pages automatically to add a new page as soon as the existing plus added text will no longer fit on the pages in the current section, You don't notice this in a single section document where no new sections have been created because the current section is the only section, and its end is at the end of the document.

But when you have a section break, and are adding text or pushing text around anywhere above that break, the text is added to the section in which you are working, pushing the section break at the end of that section downward. If the break is pushed past the end of the page it is on, Pages automatically adds a page to that section.

The new page, initially empty except for the section break, begins to fill with text (or objects inserted to 'move with text'), just as it (and they) would if the new page had been added to the end of a document.

You determined 'where (in the text stream) the first section would end' when you inserted a section break at that point.

Did you expect, when you shortened the text on Page 1, that Pages would go against your instructions and let some text seep upwards from the next section to fill the empty space on Page 1? If so, what would have been the point of placing a section break where you wanted content to start filling Section 2?

OTOH, if you don't intend Page 1 to be a Title Page, or other special one-off, but just wish to have a different header (or no header) on that page, you can do this:

• Remove (or don't insert) the Section break at the end of Page 1.
• Enter whatever Header content you want into the header field(s) on Page 1 or Page 2

(The header content will be repeated in the same position on every page in the section)

• If you want a different header on the first page:
  • Go to the View menu and choose Show Layout so that you can see the location of the header boxes.
  • Click the Text button to insert a text box.
  • Enter the text you want to see in the header position on the first page into the text box.
  • Click the Format brush, then click Arrange.
    • Click Stay on Page to disconnect the box from the text stream.
  • In the Inspector, click Text
    • Select the text in the text box. Resize and set font to match header text in the header field.
    • Select the box.
    • Resize the box to approximately the height of the header fields
    • Drag the box (or use the arrow keys) to place the text in the box in front of the text in the header field.
    • Resize the text to match the header text size on the other pages.
  • In the Section part of the Document Inspector, click to check the 'Hide on first page of section' checkbox.
• If you want NO header on the first page:
  • In the Section part of the Document Inspector, click to check the 'Hide on first page of section' checkbox.

With no section break placing the second page in a separate section from the first, text behaviour on the first two pages will be more to your expressed liking.

Regrds,

Barry

The first page is a section where you set header/footer content. The next page is a different section, which you click in, and then from the Documents : Section panel, you uncheck Match previous section, and then add your header/footer content.

Except that no Apple developers visit this site, so you can provide feedback directly to the Pages product team from your Pages application menu.