Restoring the pleading paper if it disappears when you use “Different First Page” (Word)

In order to “suppress” the page number on the caption page of a pleading, people commonly open the footer editing screen and apply the “Different First Page” option from the Header & Footer Tools tab.  That option makes it easy to create a footer (or header) on the first page that is substantively different from the footer (or header) in the rest of the document – in this case, one that lacks a page number code.

However, choosing the “Different First Page” option can cause the pleading lines and numbers to disappear. That is because the coding for the pleading paper is contained in the paragraph mark within the header, which gets wiped out (replaced with a different paragraph mark that doesn’t contain such coding) when “Different First Page” is enabled.

If that happens to you, immediately click “Undo” (or press Ctrl Z, the keyboard shortcut for Undo) and then do as follows:

1. Go into the header editing screen on the first page of your document by either double-clicking in the white space near the top of the page or right-clicking, then choosing “Edit Header.”
2. Display the non-printing characters (Show / Hide) by clicking the Paragraph icon in the Paragraph group on the Home tab or by pressing Ctrl Shift * [asterisk].
3. Select and copy the first paragraph mark (pilcrow) in the header. That paragraph mark contains the formatting codes for the header, including the graphics (pleading lines and numbering).  If you have difficulty grabbing the paragraph mark with your mouse, press Ctrl A to select the entire header, then press Ctrl C to copy.
4. Next, click to check (enable) the “Different First Page” option.
5. Don’t panic if the pleading paper disappears. Instead, simply paste the paragraph mark back into the header. Be sure to use a standard paste – using Ctrl V or “Keep Source Formatting” – rather than “Paste and Keep Text Only.” Although I generally advise people to use “Paste and Keep Text Only” in order to avoid bringing unwanted formatting into your document, in this situation you want to retain the formatting of the pleading paper (the vertical lines and line numbers). Pasting the paragraph mark should restore the pleading paper, at least on that page. If there is another paragraph mark in the header, delete it.
6. Scroll through the rest of the pleading to see if the pleading paper disappeared anywhere else when you applied the “Different First Page” option. If so, go into the header at the top of any page that doesn’t have pleading paper and paste the paragraph mark.

When you’ve finished, you can proceed to “suppress” the page number on the first page of your pleading – by deleting the page number code – and use a separate footer that displays the page number in the remainder of the document.

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Adapted from my book, Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Word 2016 (click the link to go to the book’s page on Amazon).