As much as we want to use only portrait pages in all our documents, but let’s face it, life is not all rosy and pinky as we want it to be! I’ve often been tortured asked by colleagues on how to use two different page orientations in the same document. It seems pretty easy to do this with a document that does not have a proper header and footer. The challenge that is so often encountered is a document with a header that contains text and logo, and a footer that contains the page numbers, text, etc. And the worst part is… you only want SELECTED pages in the document to have different page orientations.

This tutorial will require some sort of uhm, prerequisites… You’re highly encouraged to use a table to build the header and footer first so that things get kinda organised and uhm not so messy when the page changes its skin orientation. Now, assuming that your document’s header and footer are contained within a table respectively, let’s say you only want pages 2 to 3 to be in landscape mode, and page 4 onwards will be in portrait mode…so, here goes…

1.  Place the cursor somewhere at the bottom of page 1.

2.  On the Page Layout tab, click Breaks and select Next Page. 

4.  At this point, you’ve successfully created Section 1 and 2. To check whether it is correctly created, double-click (very rapidly) either at the bottom of page 1 footer or at the top of page 2 header. When you see Footer -Section 1- or Header -Section 2-, you’re right on track!

5.  Make sure that the cursor is still at page 2 header. Then, on the Page Layout tab, click Orientation and select Landscape.

6.  Page 2 is magically transformed into Cinderella landscape mode.

7.  Pay close attention to the header and footer in page 2. Both are not aligned nicely in the new landscape mode. This is because the header and the footer are still linked to page 1.

8.  To break this dependency, double-click (rapidly) at page 2 header. When the Header & Footer Tools appear on the ribbon, click the Design tab and you’ll notice the Link to Previous button appears to be selected.

9.  Click the Link to Previous button to deselect it. You won’t notice any change yet, as breaking this link dependency is something transparent.

10.  Click the table move handle at page 2 header to select the table.

11.  On the Layout tab, click AutoFit and select AutoFit Window.

12.  The header is now well adjusted and aligned.

13.  Similarly, for the footer section, you’ll need to break the dependency as you did earlier for the header. Simply repeat Step 8 to 11 to achieve the same result.

14.  Exit the header and footer mode. Don’t fall off your chair when you see that all the pages in the document (starting from page 2) are in landscape mode. This is the overall document view at 20%:

15.  So, to turn page 4 onwards back to portrait, place the cursor somewhere at the bottom of page 3.

16.  On the Page Layout tab, click Breaks and select Next Page. The cursor jumps to page 4.

17.  You’ve successfully created another new section, Section 3. To check whether it is correctly created, double-click (very rapidly) either at the bottom of page 3 footer or at the top of page 4 header. When you see Footer -Section 2- or Header -Section 3-, you’re another step closer to the finish line!

18.  Make sure that the cursor is still at page 4 header. Then, on the Page Layout tab, click Orientation and select Portrait.

19.  Page 4 is now in portrait mode, but holey baloney! Look at the header! It looks like Wordzilla ate the logo!

20.  Don’t keel over just yet… You just gotta break the link dependency like you did earlier in Step 8. So, double-click (rapidly) at page 4 header. When the Header & Footer Tools appear on the ribbon, click the Design tab and you’ll notice the Link to Previous button appears to be selected.

22.  Woohoo Yaaaabadabahdooo! Page 4 (and subsequent pages thereafter) is now in portrait mode! Here’s the overall document view:

HOLLLEEEYYYY RAVIOLIIIII!! This tutorial is SOOOOOO long, it qualifies for an entry into the Guinness World Records already! Phew!!! I hope this illustrated, detailed post will be very beneficial to you in your work! Now, excuse me, I gotta cook some ravioli for dinner…