Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Adding Ampersands in Headers and Footers.

Adding Ampersands in Headers and Footers

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 31, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


One of the finishing touches often applied to a worksheet is to create headers and footers that print on every page. You may have noticed that some characters won't print in a header or footer. For instance, if you work at a company named Drury & James, and you put the company name in the header or footer, it will print as Drury James, omitting the ampersand.

The reason for this is because the ampersand signals, to Excel, that the next character is "special" and represents a code controlling some aspect of what is printed. To override the effect that the ampersand has, simply use two ampersands, as in Drury && James. When you do, the first ampersand is "swallowed" by Excel and the second one actually prints.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11227) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Adding Ampersands in Headers and Footers.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Adding Borders to Cell Contents

Word allows you to quickly add borders to cells in a table, but you may not know that you can also add borders to the ...

Discover More

The Line that Won't Go Away

Have you ever had a line appear on your document that you can't seem to get rid of? It could be due to a built-in ...

Discover More

ScreenTips without Hyperlinks

ScreenTips can be a helpful feature in some documents, but adding them also means you need to add a hyperlink. Here's a ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Full-Width Headers and Footers in Excel

Excel allows you to create headers and footers. In this tip you discover that the headers and footers in Excel may not be ...

Discover More

Moving Part of a Footer Down a Line

Setting up a single footer line for your printouts is fairly easy. If you want to move part of the footer down a line so ...

Discover More

First and Last Names in a Page Header

When you have a worksheet that includes a long list of names, you may want the first and last names on each page to ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is eight minus 4?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.