Page furniture — headers, footers, margins, columns, page color — is set once and then repeats itself on every page for free. RixDocs keeps these controls on the Layout and Insert tabs, and everything you configure here is stored in the .docx, so the page design survives sharing and printing.
Headers and footers
Double-click the top or bottom of the page to enter the header or footer area, or use Insert, Header and Footer. Anything placed there — a document title, the author name, a date, a logo — repeats on every page.
Combine with fields for self-maintaining furniture:
- PAGE in the footer for page numbers.
- NUMPAGES next to it for a *Page 3 of 12* format.
- DATE in the header where the print date matters.
First-page and even-odd variants
Real documents rarely want identical pages. RixDocs supports the two classic variants:
| Variant | What it does | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| Different first page | A separate header/footer on page one | Cover pages with no header clutter |
| Different even and odd | Separate sets for even and odd pages | Book-style, double-sided printing |
Enable the variant from the header/footer context, and the document gains its extra sets. A typical report setup: empty first-page header, footer with page numbers elsewhere, and — for print — the document title on odd pages and the chapter name on even ones.
Page setup: size, orientation, margins
The Layout tab holds the physical settings:
- Page size — A4, Letter and other standards.
- Orientation — portrait or landscape, per section.
- Margins — preset normal, narrow, wide or custom values.
Margins do more than frame the text: generous margins make dense documents readable, and a landscape section inside a portrait document is the standard trick for wide tables and charts. Set the ruler visible from the View tab to drag margins directly.
Multi-column layouts
Newsletters, event programs and journal-style reports use columns:
- Select the section of text to columnize, or place the cursor for a whole-section change.
- Open the Layout tab and choose Columns.
- Pick two or three columns and set the spacing.
Text flows down the first column and continues into the next. Columns are a section property, so a document can mix one-column text with a two-column middle section — the standard structure for newsletters.
Page color and page borders
Two appearance controls finish the page design:
- Page color fills the page background — subtle tints for on-screen documents, brand colors for announcements. Page color is an on-screen and print-optional feature; check how it behaves before printing.
- Page borders draw a frame around the page with a choice of line styles, weights and colors — a single-line frame is quietly professional; ornate frames date quickly.
Both live on the Layout/Design tabs and store in the .docx like everything else.
Ruler and gridlines
For precise placement, the View tab toggles the ruler and gridlines. The ruler shows margins and indents at a glance and accepts direct drags; gridlines help align textboxes, images and shapes into clean layouts. Turn them off when writing, on when laying out.
What to explore next
- Equations and fields for PAGE and NUMPAGES in your footer.
- Footnotes, citations and TOC to complete the formal document structure.
- Export, PDF and printing to see the page design materialize on paper.