make a cover page word

Add a cover page

Microsoft Word offers a gallery of convenient pre-designed cover pages to accent your resume . Choose a cover page and replace the sample text with your own.

On the Insert tab, in the Pages group, click Cover Page .

Click a cover page layout from the gallery of options.

After you insert a cover page, you can replace the sample text with your own text by clicking to select an area of the cover page, such as the title, and typing your text.

If you insert another cover page in the document, the new cover page will replace the first cover page you inserted.

To replace a cover page created in an earlier version of Word, you must delete the first cover page manually, and then add a cover page with a design from the Word gallery.

To delete a cover page inserted with Word, click the Insert tab, click Cover pages in the Pages group, and then click Remove Current Cover Page .

Note:  Cover pages don't display page numbers.

Insert a cover page

On the Insert tab, click Cover Page .

On the Insert menu, select Cover Page

To see how your cover page will look, on the View menu, select Print Layout or Web Layout .

To replace a cover page created in an earlier version of Word, you must delete the first cover page manually, and then add a new cover page with a design from the Word gallery.

Remove a cover page

Click the Insert tab, click Cover Page , and then click Remove Cover Page .

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How to Create Custom Cover Pages in Microsoft Word

Hayley Milliman is a former Teach for America teacher turned curriculum developer and writer. Over the past five years, she's written hundreds of articles on everything from Microsoft Office to education to history. She's co-author of the book  Museum Hack's Guide to History's Fiercest Females . Read more...

make a cover page word

A great cover page draws in readers. If you use Microsoft Word, you’re in luck, because Word has ready to use cover pages. But did you know that Word also lets you create custom cover pages? Here’s how to use both.

How to Add a Ready-to-Use Cover Page to Your Word Document

Word includes some cover page templates you can insert and then customize a bit if you need a quick cover page for your document.

To find them, switch over to the “Insert” tab on Word’s Ribbon and then click the “Cover Page” button. (If your window isn’t maximized, you might see a “Pages” button instead. Click that to show the “Cover Page” button.)

On the drop-down menu, click the cover page you want to use.

You can now add your document title, subtitle, date, and other information, as well as change the design up a bit if you want.

How to Create a Custom Cover Page in Microsoft Word

Creating a cover page from a template is easy enough, but if you don’t like any of the built-in designs, you can create your own. You can do this on an existing document, but it’s easiest to start with a blank document. We’re going to be saving the custom cover page so that you can quickly insert it into an existing document anyway.

You can create your cover page using pretty much any of Word’s tools. You can add a background color, picture, or texture . You can also position those elements how you want and even apply Word’s text wrapping tools to them.  Make it look however you want.

When it comes to content, you have a couple of options. You can just type the text you want, but that wouldn’t make it much of a template unless you want the same text on the cover page every time you use it.

Instead, you can use Word’s Quick Parts feature to add document properties to the document. To do that, switch over to the “Insert” tab and then click the “Quick Parts” button.

On the drop-down menu, point to the “Document Property” submenu, and you’ll see a bunch of different properties you can insert into your document: author, title, company, publish date, and so on. Go ahead and insert whichever properties you want to appear on your title page.

When you’re done, you’ll have several fields on your page. When you insert your cover page into a document later on, those fields are populated with the actual properties from the document (and you can also edit them on the fly if you want).

They’re super plain to start with, but you can treat them like any other text in Word by applying styles and formatting, centering them on the page—whatever. Here, we’ve centered them on the page, applied the Title style to the title, shifted things down on the page a bit, and inserted a filigree illustration for a little flair. It’s not the prettiest cover page around, but it’s a good working example.

Now that we’ve got our cover page the way we want it, it’s time to create a cover page template out of it.

First, select everything in the document (that’s why we recommend starting this in a blank document) by pressing Ctrl+A. Next, head back to the “Insert” tab and then click that “Cover Page” button again.

This time, choose the “Save Selection to Cover Page Gallery” command from the drop-down menu.

In the window that opens, give your cover page a name and fill out a brief description if you want. Click “OK” when you’re done.

Now when you open the “Cover Page” drop-down menu in the future, you’ll see your new cover page template in the “General” section. Click to insert it just like you would one of Word’s built-in cover pages.

And that’s it. Creating custom cover pages for your document is pretty easy once you know where to look. While you’re at it, learn a few more quick tips on putting together professional-looking documents in Word .

make a cover page word

Erin Wright Writing

Writing-Related Software Tutorials

How to Create a Cover Page in Microsoft Word (Built-In and Custom)

By Erin Wright

Laptop and books with text overlay "How to Create a Cover Page in Microsoft Word"

Quick Links:

How to Create a Custom Cover Page

How to Remove Page Number Zero from a Cover Page

This tutorial is also available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.

Watch more than 150 other writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel .

The images below are from Word for Microsoft 365 on a PC. These steps will also work in Word 2021, Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010. However, your interface may look slightly different in those older versions of the software.

How to Create a Built-In Cover Page in Microsoft Word

You can quickly create a cover page using a built-in design.

Insert tab in Word 365

Cover Page button in Word 365

Built-In Cover Page Menu in Word 365

Cover page shortcut menu in Word 365

Cover page sample text in Word 365

Pro Tip: To delete a section of sample text, right-click it, and then select Remove Content Control from the shortcut menu.

Remove Content Control option in Word 365

The built-in cover page should now be part of your Word document.

You can create a custom cover page that can be reused in other Word documents.

Selected text and image for custom cover page in Word 365

Save Selection to Cover Page Gallery option in Word 365

Name text box in the Create New Building Block dialog box in Word 365

Important Note: I strongly recommend leaving the default settings for the other options in this dialog box.

OK button in the Create New Building Block dialog box

Your custom cover page should now be added to the Cover Page Gallery.

Save button in building blocks alert blocks in Word 365

Custom cover page in the Cover Page Gallery in Word 365

Your custom cover page should now be added to your current document.

Pro Tip: How to Delete a Custom Cover Page from the Cover Page Gallery

Organize and Delete option in Word 365

Caution: Your custom cover page will be automatically selected when the Building Blocks Organizer dialog box opens. Take care not to select another item.

Delete button in the Building Blocks Organizer in Word 365

Building block question dialog box in Word 365

Close button in the Building Blocks Organizer Dialog Box in Word 365

Your custom cover page should now be removed from the Cover Page Gallery.

How to Delete a Cover Page in Microsoft Word

The following steps show how to remove a cover page from an individual document.

Remove Current Cover Page option in Word 365

Your cover page should be removed from your document.

If your document has page numbers, the page number zero may show up unnecessarily on the cover page. The following steps show how to remove page number zero.

Header & Footer tab in Word 365

Different First Page option in Word 365

Close Header and Footer button in Word 365

The page number zero should now be removed from your cover page.

Related Resources

How to Insert Citations in Microsoft Word

How to Create a Citation with Multiple Sources in Microsoft Word

How to Insert Footnotes and Endnotes in Microsoft Word

Updated March 13, 2022

How to Make a Custom Cover Page in Microsoft Word

Learn how to make your own cover pages in Microsoft Word and create eye-catching documents.

We are talking about first impressions here. So, let's take on the first thing our eyes fall on—the cover page. The instructions below show you how to make a cover page in Word that's attractive and professional?

Note: You can use our instructions to create a cover page design for your school assignment. Before you add a cover page to your assignment, however, check for any specific requirements with your instructor.

What Is a Cover Page?

There are a lot of things that go into a professional Microsoft Word document . The cover page is the very first page of your document. Its purpose right at the beginning is to give the reader the "Big Idea" about the document.

The why and wherefore is communicated through a specific title, the author name, date, a one-liner on the subject, and any other bit of important information that you think is important for the reader.

What Does a Plain Cover Page Look Like?

Microsoft Word is used for writing serious research documents and school essays. Most of them go with monochromatic and simple cover pages. often dictated by strict style guides like the Chicago Manual of Style. Other non-academic cover pages are more casual.

But what if you want to create a cover page in Word that's way cooler than vanilla? Even if you don't have the chops for it? Design your own cover page with the easy tools on Microsoft Word and save it as your own cover page template.

For an academic assignment, do check with your instructor before using a cover page.

How to Make an Attractive Cover Page

Microsoft Word makes it painless to create a business report cover page or a title page for an essay. The Microsoft Office suite comes with a few well-designed cover pages that you can re-purpose for your document. There's a good variety to choose from.

To make a cover page, follow these steps:

The cover page appears at the beginning of the document by default. But to place it in any other location, right-click on the cover page thumbnail in the gallery and select from the options given. Though, I am not sure why you would want to!

Customize Individual Fields

Click on each pre-formatted field (the square brackets) and the whole thing gets highlighted with a blue field label on top. Type in your version for the given field. The author name might appear by default if the Microsoft Office installation is in your name.

Place the common information in Quick Parts and you don't have to bother with typing them again and again.

Change the date fields with the dropdown arrow and select a date from a calendar. You can format all fields just like normal text.

You can easily edit graphical cover page elements like any other image. Just click on the graphic to display the Drawing Tools and Picture Tools menus on the Ribbon.

Change the Cover Page Design on the Fly

Customizing a pre-formatted cover page is a piece of cake. The templates consist of formatted controls and graphic boxes that come in different color themes. So, you can change any part of the template on the fly.

Notice a picture on the cover page template? Maybe, you would like to swap it out with a logo or another more appropriate image. Just right-click on the picture and click Change Picture in the context menu.

Changed your mind about the cover page design? While working on one cover page, you can change it for another cover page by selecting a new template from the dropdown. The new template retains the field entries.

Note: To replace a cover page created in an older version of Microsoft Word, you must delete the first cover page manually, and then add a new design from the cover page gallery.

Click on Save to finalize the cover page as a document.

If you would like to save the cover page for later use in another document, select the entire cover page.

Click on Insert > Cover Page > Save Selection to Cover Page Gallery . You can use the same menu to remove a selected cover page from the gallery.

How to Make a Cover Page in Microsoft Word

Word templates are a time-saving solution, but they don't allow your personality to shine through. To add a personal touch, you should put in a bit more effort and make a cover page from scratch and put some planning into it.

You have all the image editing tools in Microsoft Word at your disposal. When you can  design your own logo in Microsoft Word , a cover page is less of a chore. Borrow or steal ideas from the process.

The screenshot below displays a custom cover page I created in Microsoft Word from scratch. I used a few basic Shapes to create the design and formatted them with color.

Save Your Custom Template

Complete your cover page design on a fresh Microsoft Word document. Save this document as a Microsoft Word template ( File > Save As > Microsoft Word Template ) in a location of your choice.

Now, the next steps are about adding your own cover page to the default choices under the Insert menu. Follow these steps:

Press Ctrl + A to select the entire page.

Add these selections to the Quick Parts gallery. Go to Ribbon > Insert > Quick Parts (the Text Group). Select  Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery…  from the dropdown.

Enter the details in the dialog for a new Building Block . Building blocks are reusable Microsoft Word elements that you can add to any of the galleries available in Word. This is what the dialog box looks like:

Click OK and close the Building Block dialog box. Go to the Insert menu and check your new cover page template.

Create Cover Pages With Style

A cover page is one of the best ways to stylize your document. But is it one of the more underused features of Microsoft Word ? A Microsoft Word document is often bland. Consider the merits:

Most of us don't commonly employ a cover page with a document. If you want to, try free Microsoft Word cover templates and see if they make your document more eye-catching. Then, you can start making your own designs for the front page of a document.

Icon + Wordmark

How to add a Custom Cover Page to a Microsoft Word Document

make a cover page word

Adding a cover page to the start of your Word Document is a great way to set the tone for your document. The cover page is the first thing your reader will see and should outline the documents title, author, maybe the date it was written or other key information that a reader may find useful to view at a glance before they dive into the rest of the document.

Microsoft Word does have a large number of pre-designed cover page options available. We wrote a post on how to insert there here.

If you are looking for something a bit fancy, or unique, creating your own custom cover page may be just what you need.

How to Create an Amazing Report Cover Page Design [Plus Templates]

Some companies require brand specific cover pages, you may need to follow brand guidelines with logo placements, colours and layouts in which case a customised cover page is perfect for you.

In this article, we will outline how to insert and create a custom cover page to the start of your Microsoft Word Document before leaving you to make it look picture perfect.

Creating a Custom Cover Page in Microsoft Word

make a cover page word

make a cover page word

make a cover page word

make a cover page word

make a cover page word

make a cover page word

make a cover page word

With so many different ways to customise a cover page, Microsoft has opened the doors for you to get creative and use text, images, photos, shapes and layout to design a cover page to suit your document perfectly.

On the hunt for an easier way to manage version control?

If you’re collaborating on Microsoft Word Documents and need to keep track of each new version along the way, it is likely that you (like so many of us) have a messy shared drive full of cluttered, badly named versions and no real way of knowing which one if the most recent and who made changes to what.

The endless scrolling through what feeling like 500 versions to figure out if Report_v9_edited_final_FINALFINAL_2 is actually the most recent version.

Is it the final one? Let’s say it is, now you have added your edits and are ready to save a new version, do you just add a _updated onto the end of the already long file name, or the current date – hoping no body else edits and saves on the same day?

Its a mind-field out there!

Then just to add another hidden bomb to the field, there is always one person in the team that saves a version in a different spot and it’s near impossible to figure out where it went.

Find Files Faster: How to Organize Files and Folders

Collaborating in Word can be challenging, with Version control the number one frustration for most small to large corporations who collaborate regularly and do not have an automatic version control tool on hand.

A tool that manages version control for you, such as Simul Docs will take all of the file naming and searching out of your job description leaving you to spend more time to edit.

Simul Docs manages version control for you. When you open a new file, Simul will save it as file 0.0.1, then John from Marketing opens your file, makes some changes and presses save – this becomes file 0.0.2 and so on.

It’s version control that makes sense.

make a cover page word

Then you want to go back and see what changes John has made over the course of the documents life. Well that’s easy, because Simul not only tracks the versions for you with the edits saved in each it places the authors name next to the document so you know who owns which version at a glance.

So now it’s your turn to edit the Word Document, which one is the most recent one?

Simul lists all of the versions in an easy to view ‘versions list’ at the side of your dashboard. The most recent version will be listed at the top, with the highest version number, e.g 0.0.5.

make a cover page word

You can open version 0.0.5 at the click of a button, edit it directly in Simul or open it in Microsoft Word, depending on which interface you personally prefer working within.

make a cover page word

Now that you are editing away, Simul also knows that you are going to want your changes tracked, so tracked changes are automatic, every, single, time you open the document. Because collaborating can be stressful enough without having to remember to turn on tracked changes or save the document as a new version before you start editing to avoid saving over the last file.

So now you’ve made your edits, with all of your changes tracked (thanks Simul!) and are ready to press save and share your file and let your team know you have finished. Simul has you covered again – when you press save Simul automatically sends an email to the document owner letting them know a new version is available for their review.

If you did want to share your document directly, Simul allows you to share via a directly link, email or to any of the popular cloud storage systems such as Dropbox, GoogleDrive, OneDrive and more.

Save, export and download the document out of Simul docs at the click of a button. Simul gives you the option to do so in the original Word Document format or as a PDF.

make a cover page word

With collaboration in mind, purpose built tools such as Simul Docs were built to make collaboration easy. From version control, to tracking changes, saving, editing, merging and more – Simul has you covered!

If you find yourself wasting time searching through a messy shared drive, we suggest you give Simul Docs a go.

With free trials available, you’ve got nothing to loose.

Get Started For Free

See how Simul can help you with a 14 day free trial, and paid plans start at just $15 per month.

tips.net

make a cover page word

Formatting a Cover Page

make a cover page word

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 12, 2022) This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021

If you are writing a report, you will probably want to create a cover page. In some word processors, this would be done as a separate file. You can use this approach in Word, but you can also format a cover page as part of the document containing the report. This is done by making the cover page one section and the rest of the report another section. To do this, follow these steps:

There is another way you can create a cover page, and it works great if you are in a hurry. If you are using Word 2007 or Word 2010, all you need to do is display the Insert tab of the ribbon and click the Cover Page tool at the very left of the ribbon. Word displays a gallery of various cover pages you could add to your current document.

If you are using Word 2013 or a later version, click the Pages tool at the far left of the ribbon in the Insert tab. From the drop-down menu, select Cover Page. Word will display the gallery of various cover pages you can add to your document.

To use one of these pre-defined cover pages, simply click on the design you want. Word inserts the cover page at the beginning of your document, inserting the section break automatically, as described above. There is a good chance you'll need to adjust whatever cover page you add in this manner, or at least make sure it contains all the elements you want included. However, it is a quick and easy way to add a snazzy cover page to any report or document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9413) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Formatting a Cover Page .

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. Learn more about Allen ...

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IMAGES

  1. 39 Amazing Cover Page Templates (Word + Psd) ᐅ Templatelab regarding Microsoft Word Cover Page

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  2. how to make cover page design in ms word

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  3. Cover Page

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  4. How to create a Cover Page in Word 2010

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  5. The exciting 39 Amazing Cover Page Templates (Word + Psd) ᐅ Template Lab Within Report Front

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  6. How to Create Custom Cover Pages in Microsoft Word

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  5. How To Design a Cover Page In Ms Word

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COMMENTS

  1. Add a cover page

    On the Insert tab, in the Pages group, click Cover Page. office 14 ribbon · Click a cover page layout from the gallery of options. After you insert a cover page

  2. How to Create a Cover Page in Microsoft Word (Built-In & Custom)

    Learn how to create a cover page in Microsoft Word. First, we'll create a cover page using a built-in design. Then, we'll create a custom

  3. How to Create Custom Cover Pages in Microsoft Word

    To find them, switch over to the “Insert” tab on Word's Ribbon and then click the “Cover Page” button. (If your window isn't maximized, you

  4. How to Create a Cover Page in Microsoft Word (Built-In and Custom)

    How to Create a Cover Page in Microsoft Word (Built-In and Custom) · Select the Insert tab in the ribbon. · Select Cover Page in the Pages group. · Choose a built-

  5. How to Make a Custom Cover Page in Microsoft Word

    How to Make an Attractive Cover Page · Open a new Word document. · Click on the Insert menu on the ribbon. · The dropdown for Cover Page is the first feature you

  6. How To Create a Cover Page in Word (From Gallery or Custom)

    Navigate to the "Insert" tab and click on it. When the menu appears, click on the "Pages" option. Another menu appears and you can choose the "

  7. How to add a Custom Cover Page to a Microsoft Word Document

    Creating a Custom Cover Page in Microsoft Word · Select a Cover Page template that best suits the cover page design you would like on your document · Customise

  8. How to insert a Custom Cover Page in Microsoft Word

    Open Microsoft Word. · Click the Insert tab. · On the Insert tab in the Pages group, click Cover Page. · A drop-down list will appear displaying

  9. How to Add a Cover Page in Microsoft Word Document?

    Microsoft Word has a special feature called a cover page. · Step 2: Select the cover page from the left side of the navigation menu as shown:.

  10. Formatting a Cover Page

    If you are using Word 2013 or a later version, click the Pages tool at the far left of the ribbon in the Insert tab. From the drop-down menu