Increasing Top Document Margin un-obscures Header, but only for page 1.

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Level 1

4 points

Increasing Top Document Margin un-obscures Header, but only for page 1.

I have a one row high header, and the header column(?) bar :… was covering the header (except when I click outside of the table). Apple support Add and remove headers and footers in Pages on Mac - Apple Support (AZ) … says:

"To set the distance from the top and bottom page margins, click the Document radio button in the toolbar, click the Document tab at the top of the sidebar, then click the arrows or enter values in the Top and Bottom fields (below the Header and Footer checkboxes)."

I increased the Top Document margin until the header on page 1 was no longer obscured, but on the following pages, the original problem persists. On that support page, there is also mention of Sections. I have not created any sections.

I thought that maybe I needed to click Documents & Margins | Facing Pages, so I tried that, but it has no effect on the issue, however after unselecting that option, my pages are now showing two across, and I'd like to have them show page 1, followed by page 2 below, etc. Bonus question: how can I return to that view?

(The Section tab has a section: "Headers & Footers", and I tried that, but it does not help (I realize that is about headers, and not Document Margins, but I thought I'd try it anyway.)

macOS 14.8.2

Pages version 14.4 (7043.0.93)

Posted on Dec 23, 2025 9:03 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

bob7 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 31, 2025 11:26 AM in response to Camelot

Correct; I've created no sections in this doc:

I think you're onto something about what object I'm discussing. I now think maybe it is not a header, but a text box (I explain more at the end of this reply). However it shows up at the top of each page (which I do want) (I didn't create a text box manually for each page).

Page 1 showing the text I'm discussing, and the column 'legend?' row (A, B, C, etc.). The text at the top is not obscured, after I modified the Top Document margin until the text at the top on page 1 was not obscured:

Page 2 with the text obscured:

Page 1 after clicking to the left or right of the table(?) to make the column legend row vanish:

Page 2 after clicking to the left or right of the table(?) to make the column legend row vanish. The space between the text and the top of the table(?) is less than that of page 1, hence the reason for the text being obscured in pages 2 and the rest:

This just occurred to me: I likely imported a Word doc to create my template in Pages, and this is a copy of the Pages template. I think that in Word, I had a variable for the date and time in the Word header (used to show when the document was last printed), but it isn't updating in Pages, and is almost for sure just plain text (I struck-through the date and time manually, since it is wrong, and I never got around to learning how to use such variables in Pages.)

I'm fine deleting the text box(?) in my template, and recreating the functionality in Pages. Would I be using a header?

View -> Zoom -> One Page does the trick for that matter.

Thanks for your insights!

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Answer 2

Camelot

Level 9

58,365 points

Dec 31, 2025 10:42 AM in response to bob7

The problem does sound like one of sections, where each section of the document can have different settings for layout, headers/footers, etc., but if you haven't created any sections that shouldn't be an issue.

There's also possible terminology issues that might be at play here... confusion between margins (blank space between the edge of the page and content) and headers (a line added to the top of each page, inside the margin). You also show a screenshot of something that doesn't look like a standard Pages header, so I'm not sure where that comes into play. Can you show a larger snapshot of what you're seeing?

> ... Margins | Facing Pages... Bonus question: how can I return to that view?

That's easy - View -> Zoom -> One Page

It's unclear why switching from Facing Pages to non-facing doesn't revert to One Page zoom. Maybe that's a bug, but it's easy to toggle.

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