Insert Header and Footer to Word using Java

Headers and footers are sections that appear in the top/ bottom margin of a Word document. They are usually used to add additional information such as title, file name, company logo as well as page numbers to a Word document and their presence makes the document more organized. This article will introduce how to insert the header and footer that contains text, images, lines and page numbers to a Word document with a 3rd party free Java API.

1# First you need to import the jar dependency to your Java application (2 methods)

● Download the free API (Free Spire.Doc for Java) and unzip it, then add the Spire.Doc.jar file to your Java application as dependency.

● Directly add the jar dependency to maven project by adding the following configurations to the pom.xml.

<repositories>
   <repository>
      <id>com.e-iceblue</id>
      <name>e-iceblue</name>
      <url>http://repo.e-iceblue.com/nexus/content/groups/public/</url>
   </repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
   <dependency>
      <groupId>e-iceblue</groupId>
      <artifactId>spire.doc.free</artifactId>
      <version>3.9.0</version>
   </dependency>
</dependencies>

2# The relevant code snippet of inserting header and footer to Word document:

import com.spire.doc.*;
import com.spire.doc.documents.*;
import com.spire.doc.fields.DocPicture;
import com.spire.doc.fields.TextRange;

public class InsertHeaderAndFooter {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        //Load a Word document
        Document document = new Document();
        document.loadFromFile("sample0.docx");

        //Get the first section
        Section section = document.getSections().get(0);

        //Call insertHeaderAndFooter method to add header and footer to the section
        insertHeaderAndFooter(section);

        //Save to file
        document.saveToFile("out/HeaderAndFooter.docx", FileFormat.Docx);
    }

    private static void insertHeaderAndFooter(Section section) {

        //Get header and footer from a section
        HeaderFooter header = section.getHeadersFooters().getHeader();
        HeaderFooter footer = section.getHeadersFooters().getFooter();

        //Add a paragraph to header
        Paragraph headerParagraph = header.addParagraph();

        //Insert a picture to header paragraph and set its position
        DocPicture headerPicture = headerParagraph.appendPicture("C:\\Users\\Administrator\\Desktop\\mars.jpg");
        headerPicture.setHorizontalAlignment(ShapeHorizontalAlignment.Left);
        headerPicture.setVerticalOrigin(VerticalOrigin.Top_Margin_Area);
        headerPicture.setVerticalAlignment(ShapeVerticalAlignment.Center);

        //Add text to header paragraph
        TextRange text = headerParagraph.appendText("Introduction of Mars");
        text.getCharacterFormat().setFontName("Arial");
        text.getCharacterFormat().setFontSize(10);
        text.getCharacterFormat().setItalic(true);
        text.getCharacterFormat().setBold(true);
        headerParagraph.getFormat().setHorizontalAlignment(HorizontalAlignment.Right);

        //Set text wrapping to behind
        headerPicture.setTextWrappingStyle(TextWrappingStyle.Behind);

        //Set the bottom border style of the header paragraph
        headerParagraph.getFormat().getBorders().getBottom().setBorderType(BorderStyle.Single);
        headerParagraph.getFormat().getBorders().getBottom().setLineWidth(1f);

        //Add a paragraph to footer
        Paragraph footerParagraph = footer.addParagraph();

        //Add Field_Page and Field_Num_Pages fields to the footer paragraph
        footerParagraph.appendField("page number", FieldType.Field_Page);
        footerParagraph.appendText(" of ");
        footerParagraph.appendField("number of pages", FieldType.Field_Num_Pages);
        footerParagraph.getFormat().setHorizontalAlignment(HorizontalAlignment.Right);

        //Set the top border style of the footer paragraph
        footerParagraph.getFormat().getBorders().getTop().setBorderType(BorderStyle.Single);
        footerParagraph.getFormat().getBorders().getTop().setLineWidth(1f);
    }
}

3# A screenshot of the generated Word document: