Keep acrobat from deleting header/footer created in Word when updating Acrobat header?

[_Karen_Dysinger_]

I have a loooong pdf document created from many separate Word documents (Word 2007). Each document has it's own header and footer in Word, which I need to remain in the PDF file. When I merge the files togeter using Acrobat, everything is fine. Then I can add additional header/footer using Acrobat with no problem.

The problem occurs when I need to insert a new page into the document. It inserts the new page without the overall Acrobat header, so I update the Acrobat header and Acrobat then deletes all of the headers that were originally created in Word. Grr....

Is there any way to keep Acrobat from recognizing the Word headers as headers so they'll remain permanently in the document? I can't re-create the PDF document each time one of the zillions of pages change.

I hope this makes sense :)

Edited to add that I know this would be easier in InDesign or some other program, but I'm the only one who has these programs, so the original files have to remain in Word so other employees can access the documents to make changes.

[_T_Harv_]

Very similar problem. I convert multiple Word 2003 documents to a single PDF, each with different header/footer information. I ADD a new header/footer (page numbers). If later I have to change them, or I found that I made a mistake and have to remove the previous page numbers, the Word headers/footers also disappear.

Adobe Acrobat 7 worked fine for us; why is the "more advanced" version (9.0 Pro) causing a bigger headache than the previous "primitive" version? I understand that Adobe wanted to add the ability to create consistent headers/footers, but they can't assume that people no longer want their original MSWord headers/footers. How can I make my MSWord headers/footers untouchable to Adobe?

[Guest]

Similar problem here, too!  We have many documents that need to be merged together and consecutively numbered.  Each document needs a separate header.  Some of the headers were created in Word and some by the Add Header/Footer function in Acrobat 9 when the original files were PDF'd.  After files were combined, we added the footer with the consecutive page numbering.  So far so good.  Unfortunately, when a page needs to be inserted (and the footer updated), headers disappear, kind of randomly. Some of the headers that had been inserted into PDFs disappear, and most headers from Word documents disappear.

Would this be because some Word files had previously been PDF'd before they were combined? What about the PDF'd files' headers? 

Our workaround has been to save a master file without the footer until just before printing, and to insert the footer immediately before printing.  But it's kind of clunky.  

[Techwidget]

I also came across this problem when doing research to figure out how to put my organization's board books (500+ pages) online for their quarterly meetings. I work with both Word and Excel files from different departments in my company that need to be combined as PDFs. My original idea was to establish headers for the original documents and leave the footers blank, adding footers when the PDF was combined. That worked well until I ran across this problem>

Since there always seems to be last-minute changes, even adding the numbers as a last step may not be an acceptable workaround, since we're never quite sure when the last step is! Trying to get people to adhere to strict deadlines is tough -- there's always someone with a reasonable (and important, of course) exception.

I tried entering this as a bug into the Adobe support system, but couldn't access that page nor the enhancement page.

This is an incredibly annoying problem that mars what would otherwise be a very good solution for us.

Susan

[Samjazzy]

Was this issue ever resolved?  I am having the exact same issue.  More than 300 Word docs with headers and footers are combined into one PDF file.  I then add a PDF footer to track each page within the entire document.  When I need to add/change info, I can't update the PDF footer without striping away all the Word headers and footers.  Like each of the others that replied here, I NEED A SOLUTION AND QUICK!!!  Thanks!

[SandyMissparker]

Add me to the list....I came here looking for a solution to the same problem. Thanks!

[William_Vimes]

I was running into the exact same problem with Acrobat X Pro and went searching for a solution. I came up with an answer from acrobatusers.com, so I thought I'd share it here:

1. In Word 2007 or Word 2010, click on the Acrobat tab in the menu bar then open Preferences.
2. On the Settings tab, uncheck Enable Accessibility and Reflow with tagged Adobe PDF.
   Convert your file to PDF.
3. Now when you add a header in Acrobat you should no  longer get the dialogue to replace existing header or add new one.

I tried this and when you open the imported Word document in Acrobat, Acrobat thinks the original Word headers and footers are "text" instead of coded as a header or footer. As stated above, you don't have the option for Remove... or Update..., but can only Add Header & Footer...

If you do add a header or footer in Acrobat, it will only allow you remove or update the Acrobat header or footer you just added, but won't touch the original Word header or footer.

Within the Add Header and Footer... dialogue -> Appearance Options -> Shrink document to avoid overwriting the document's text and graphics seems to function correctly as well, and retains the original Word header and footer when it shrinks down the document.

[SandyMissparker]

This sounds like the best solution yet....I can't wait to try it. Thank you!

[THar2]

William Vimes' solution only works when using PDFMaker (clicking the 'Convert to PDF' button in MS Word) and creating PDFs one at a time.  For those of us that use the "Combine supported files in Acrobat" option (to convert and combine multiple MS Word files simultaneously), the MS Word headers/footers are not protected.  I think the 'Combine' feature uses the PDF Printer, which has different settings than PDFMaker (the MS plug-in).  Does anybody know how to protect existing MS Word headers/footers without having to convert each one to PDF prior to combining?

[Dave Merchant]

William Vimes' solution is far from recommended, as it removes the document structure - which prevents accessibility and reflow.

Unfortunately there is no simple way to mark the H/F contents exported from Word as anything other than a H/F - it's hard-wired into the Office plugin. You could do it with a custom plugin for Acrobat, but not with something simple like a script.

Some background for those wondering what's happening under the hood

Headers and footers created in Acrobat live in special "pagination artifact OCGs" - a layer within the PDF file that can be easily-managed, for example you can set it to show only on printouts, and can update it with the Acrobat toolset, but which doesn't show on the Layers panel. When exporting from Word, the H/F data is not placed into an OCG, instead it's tagged as "artifact" page content with a pagination subtype - which means it's not on a layer, but it's ignored by things like screenreaders.

Acrobat looks for anything matching the pagination subtype "Header" or "Footer" when checking if H/Fs already exist, so it will see the ones from Word. However it can't edit them as they're not the OCG-based type of H/F that Acrobat creates, which is why trying to "update" causes them to be deleted. If you want to point the finger I'd say it was an oversight in the Office plugin.

Whenever you're likely to be combining files and changing H/F contents after the fact, realistically you need to forget about bringing them across from Word, and add the H/Fs directly into the PDF in Acrobat - that way they remain editable. Yes there are some limitations (you can't put images in Acrobat H/Fs) but you can get round that easily-enough by using backgrounds and layers.

[default1nv010w0zzfb]

I had the same issue. I resolved this by taking the PDF and "printing to PDF" when I was ready to add in my page numbering using header/footer in Adobe Pro DC. This seemed to remove the "smarts" embedded in the PDF and I no longer lost the headers that had been created in the word file prior to exporting to PDF and inserting into the larger document. This works well when you're not the person creating the PDF from the original word file, but instead have been provided the PDF file from someone else and are stuck with an embedded header/footer.

[remsleep789]

Thank you for this last suggestion--that is what I did. I first exported my Acrobat file (a letter on University stationery) to Word, used Print to PDF, saved that version, and inserted this into my main PDF file. When I applied the page numbers to the footer, it did NOT remove the header/footers from the original letter. Thank you

[Tariq Ahmad]

Hi @remsleep789, 

Thanks for reaching out. 

You have updated an almost 4+ years old discussion. I am pretty sure the version of the apps used is different now. If you use Acrobat functionality Acrobat doesn't remove Header or Footer information. 

Could you provide us more details about your workflow and question so we can better understand and assist you accordingly. 

~Tariq

[Jena36108846frgd]

Tariq, 

This same thing is happening to me. All of my documents are Word documents saved as PDFs then combined in Adobe into one document. After saving the new combined document, all is well - the headers are there. Then I add page number footers. As soon as I do that, the headers disappear. If I remove the page number footers, the headers do not come back.