Tom’s Tutorials For Excel: Entering an Ampersand in Your Header or Footer

Tom’s Tutorials For Excel: Entering an Ampersand in Your Header or Footer

If you’ve ever wondered why a custom header or footer does not show an ampersand (&) when you want to show it, there’s a small trick to making that happen. All it takes is two ampersands in succession, in order to show a single one.

For example, suppose you want a custom footer to be This & That. When setting up your custom footer, you need to actually enter This && That.

Here are the steps.

Step 1

Step 2
In the Page Setup dialog box:
• Click onto the Header/Footer tab.
• Click the Custom Header or Custom Footer button. In this example I clicked Custom Footer.

Step 3
In the Footer dialog box, in the Center Section field, I entered This && That. Notice the two ampersand characters in immediate succession. Then, click the OK button.

Step 4
You will return to the Page Setup dialog to confirm the look of your custom footer text. I circled in red what it looks like in this example. Simply click the OK button to confirm your custom footer text.