Word: Linking and unlinking all headers and footers

Link all headers and footers to each other

After you've got the first header and footer fixed up to your liking, this macro will then link them all so that this header and footer is copied across all sections.

Public Sub LinkHeadersAndFooters() ' Links all headers and footers apart from the first one.

  Count = 0

  For Each mySection In ActiveDocument.Sections

    Count = Count + 1

    If Count > 2 Then 'Iterate over each sections (apart from the first) and unlink headers and footers...

      With ActiveDocument.Sections(mySection.Index) 'Link header...

        With .Headers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary)

          .LinkToPrevious = True

        End With 'Link footer...

        With .Footers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary)

          .LinkToPrevious = True

        End With

      End With

    End If

  Next mySection

End Sub

Unlink all headers and footers from each other

After you link all the headers and footers to copy the data, sometimes you need to unlink the headers and footers different to each other, especially if they are portrait and landscape. Here's a way to unlink them all with a macro.

Sub UnlinkHeadersAndFooters()

    Dim sec As Section

    Dim hdr As HeaderFooter

    Dim ftr As HeaderFooter

    ' Loop through each section in the document

    For Each sec In ActiveDocument.Sections

        ' Deselect "Different First Page"

        sec.PageSetup.DifferentFirstPageHeaderFooter = False

        ' Loop through each header in the section

        For Each hdr In sec.Headers

            hdr.LinkToPrevious = False

        Next hdr

        ' Loop through each footer in the section

        For Each ftr In sec.Footers

            ftr.LinkToPrevious = False

        Next ftr

        ' Check if the section break is not a new page. This works around a Word bug,

        ' where Continuous breaks or column breaks have an invisible header and footer.

        ' If it is not a new page break, then set this section to LinkToPrevious so that

        ' it properly inherits the headers and footers ready for the next section.

        If sec.PageSetup.SectionStart <> wdSectionNewPage Then

            ' Link the header to the previous section

            sec.Headers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).LinkToPrevious = True

            sec.Footers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).LinkToPrevious = True

        End If

    Next sec

End Sub