Not understanding something about margins and header

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Level 2

148 points

Not understanding something about margins and header

Pages 2 5.5.3

Mac OS 10.10.2

I'm trying to rap my head around how pages does headers.

I think of a header as a place were stuff goes so that it occurs at the top of each page. I would expect it to be positioned at the bottom of the top margin. For instance, with a top margin of .5 in and a header of 1. in, I would expect my header stuff to start at .5 in and my non header stuff to start at 1.5 in.

This is what I observed. Her are a couple of clarifications to start:

–All measures are vertical measures

–Origin represents the offset were an object placed at zero in the body of the document appears.

Top Margin, set to .5 in. Origin at .5 in as expected.

-Add a 1 in header. origin moves to 1 in. I would expect the origin to move to 1.5 in, .5 in top margin + 1 in for the header.

-Add some 24 pt text to the header and the origin moves down even further, by at least a 1/3 in (24/72). Since 1/3 in is clearly less than one in, i would not expect the origin to change at all since the text would easily fit within 1 in.

This is what i am seeing. Without a header, the origin is the height of the top margin. The header appears to ignore the top margin and makes its start at the header height and grows downward from there. This seems wrong.

Can someone steer me straight?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Apr 28, 2015 3:37 PM

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Answer 1

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VikingOSX

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Apr 28, 2015 4:24 PM in response to StephenM

A good way to understand how these document parts interplay is to open a blank document, and from the view menu, choose show layout. You will see the header/footer, and the document body displayed. Now choose Document from the Toolbar.

The top margin is the distance from the top edge of the page to the top edge of the document body. The header floats in this top margin space. The default 0.5 inch header setting is the distance from the top of the page to the top of the header box itself. Reduce the top/bottom margins and the document body grows in those respective directions. Even if the top margin is set to 0 inch, the document body will not expand above the bottom of the default header box, until the header position is reduced, or the header is removed in the Document panel.

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Answer 2

Apr 28, 2015 7:04 PM in response to StephenM

Menu > View > Show Layout

Then play with the dimensions of both the Margins and the Header/Footer and you will see that the Header and Footer push away the Margins of the main text if they overlap.

Peter

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Answer 3

StephenM Author

Level 2

148 points

Apr 28, 2015 9:29 PM in response to VikingOSX

Tthanks,

That's what I thought. That's not what saw.

With ith a top margin of .5 in and header of 1 in, the header got placed at 1.0 in, not .5 in. Can you try it yourself and see if you get different results?

Thanks.

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Answer 4

StephenM Author

Level 2

148 points

Apr 28, 2015 9:32 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Thanks for setting to Layout suggestion.That's how I got the measurements in my post. That, and using the vertical rule.

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Answer 5

Apr 28, 2015 9:52 PM in response to StephenM

As much as I am loath to set my Preferences to Cubits:

I set the Header to 0.5" and the Top Margin to 1" and that is exactly where they are (aligned to the top of the bounding box, not the baseline of the text).

You have your dimensions backwards with the Header lower than the Top Margin.

Peter

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