Add a Cover Page to Your Handbook

Add Two Blank Pages at the Beginning of the Document

Next you will add a cover page and a contents page. You need two blank pages at the start. Move your cursor to the very start of your document, on the top line. (Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click the Home button.)

Now insert two more section breaks. (Page Layout tab, then Breaks > Section Break > Next Page.) Do this two times to create two blank pages. Your first handbook page , I. Overview, will then start in Section 3. The first blank page will be Section 1, and the second blank page will be Section 2.

There are actually a few cover page templates which can be found on the Insert tab, Pages panel. For this activity you will create your own. First, you can check that the Section breaks are in the right place.

Click back on the Home tab, and locate the Paragraph panel. Now look for the Show/Hide icon:

Click it once to activate it. You should see this at the top of your two blank pages:

You can zoom out using the plus and minus symbols in the Status Bar in the bottom right of Word. That way, you can see two pages on the screen at once.

View Two Pages

Or click the View tab, and then the Two Pages item on the Zoom panel.

You can change the margins for a single page. They are a bit too big on the cover page, at the moment. So you will change them.

Change Margins on First Section

With your cursor to the top of the cover page (page 1), click on the Page Layout tab. Locate the Page Setup panel. Click on the Margins item to see a menu appear. Then select Custom Margins at the bottom:

Change the margins to the following:

Top: .40"
Left: .40"
Right: .40"
Bottom: .40"

Look at the bottom of the dialogue box and locate Apply to. Set it to "This Section".

Your dialogue box should look like this before you click OK:

You will place a border on your cover page. Before doing that, create some space on your page by holding down the Enter key on your keyboard. Keep it held down until the Section Break is at the bottom of your page: (If you go too far, hit the Backspace key)

You can now hide the formatting marks by clicking the backward P again (Home tab, Paragraph panel.)

To set a border for the cover page, click back on the Page Layout tab. Locate the Page Background panel and click the Page Borders item:

When you click on Page Borders, you'll see the following dialogue box appear:

From the Setting list on the left, click on Box. You can create a Box type border by using the four items in the middle: Style, Color, Width, Art. You will use the Art item. So click the arrow to see the following list:

You can select any one you like, but I chose a fancy one from the middle of the list.

Now locate the Apply to dropdown box on the right and set it to This Section:

Before clicking OK, your dialogue box should look like this:

When you're done, click OK. Your cover page will then look like this:

You can still type onto this page. Click your left mouse button about half way up the page, and type a title. Type Your Company Name Employee Handbook. Change the font and font size but be careful of where your Section Break ends up when you change the font size. If you need to click on the section break line and back space until you get it back on the first page.

Insert ClipArt

Click the show/hide button again to check it's still at the bottom. If you add clip art or an image that is too big it will push the section break down onto page 2, and give you a border on this page as well. Use your backspace key to get the section break back onto page 1. Any border that appears on page 2 will then disappear.

Your page may now look something like this: