How is it possible to copy an entire document into another document without bringing across the header and footer?

I have tried Copy & Paste and Insert + File but this brings across the header & footer and the Page setup

Article contributed by Dave Rado

When you copy and paste between documents, the section information (Page Setup, Headers, Footers, Column format) will come over to the document you paste into, only if:

Either:
1.	The selection you copied contains section breaks; in which case, the section information of the section preceding the section break(s) will come over, but not the section information of the section following the section break(s).
Or:
2.	The document you are pasting into is completely blank (other than the empty paragraph that all “blank” documents contain); and the final paragraph mark of the document you are copying from was selected when you copied.¹

Similarly, when you insert one document into another using Insert + File, the section information will come over to the document you insert into, only if:

Either:
1.	The file you inserted contains section breaks; in which case, the section information of the section preceding the section break(s) will come over, but not the section information of the section following the section break(s).
Or:
2.	The document you are inserting the file into is completely blank (other than the empty paragraph that all “blank” documents contain).

If you don't want the section information to come over when you copy and paste or when you select Insert + File, then:

First, you must delete any section breaks in the source document, (or if copying only part of the source document, within that part). The quickest way is to use Find & Replace.

If using copy and paste, then unless the target document is blank, the section information won't be pasted. If the target document is blank, you can either create a dummy paragraph in the target document before you paste (press Return); or you can de-select the final paragraph mark (press Shift + left arrow) in the source document before copying. Either way, the section information won't be pasted.

I would recommend creating the dummy paragraph, rather than deselecting the final paragraph, because the latter method prevents the Style property of the final paragraph from being retained, which is undesirable.

If using Insert + File, then again, unless the target document is blank, the headers & footers won't be inserted. If the target document is blank, you have to create a dummy paragraph in the target document before you insert the file, and then the section information won't be inserted.

See also: Working with sections.

__________________

This latter behaviour breaks all rules of logic, because after pasting, the final paragraph mark of the target document is preceded by the final paragraph of what was pasted; so logically, the section formatting of the target document, stored in its final paragraph mark (see Working with sections), should be retained after pasting, and isn't.

In fact, what seems to be happening is that (by design), after pasting, the section information of the source document is transferred “on the fly” from the penultimate paragraph mark to the final paragraph mark of the target document.

The reason for the “design” is probably the fact that there is no other way of transferring the page setup between documents when pasting or inserting files, short of inserting a section break at the end of the source document before copying it; and redundant section breaks can be a nightmare. But it is confusing; and a “Do you want to transfer the page setup?” message box when you paste would have helped (only if you'd copied the final paragraph mark and the target was blank, of course). And/or a setting under Tools + Options to allow you to turn off this behaviour would be nice as well. If you agree, do contact http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/ .