How to remove header in Google Docs

Removing headers and footers shouldn’t be a big deal, but unfortunately that is not a case with Google Docs. For years users have been complaining about the lack of this important feature, and many of them still don’t know how to remove header in Google Docs. After some testing and research, we have found the best solution. But first, let’s see what solutions are there and which ones turned out a failure and which was a success.

Removing information or the header?

When you search on Google how to remove header in Google Docs, you may hit upon the articles that are a bit misleading. Deleting content from the header or removing header is not the same thing. If you want to delete text from the header, you just need to click on the header area and hit the backspace on the keyboard to remove the text.

It is totally a different story if you want to remove a header in Google Docs. There are add-ons that deal with that problem, but given that people are still searching for the solution, it is safe to assume that these add-ons are not satisfying enough.

Another solution you can find on the internet, is to copy text from that document that has header and paste it in a new document. It doesn’t seem as a good choice though, because if you paste the text in another Google Docs, the result will be the same.

Is there a solution to this issue?

The best way to remove a header from your Google Docs document is to click on the File menu and and then on Page Setup (see the image below).

how to remove header in google docs

On the right side of the window you can see the Margins section. In the field Top, change the default number 1 to 0. If you want to remove footer too, do the same in the Bottom field. Once you press OK, the header will be removed but not totally (see the image below). So the header space will still be there, but it will be almost invisible. Compared to default setting, this one is quite acceptable, especially if you want to print the document.

remove header in google docs

How do you make the header smaller in Google Docs?

There is another useful setting in Google Docs when it comes to changing the size of the margins.

Click on Format menu and then on Headers & Footers.

Now, type the size in the header field. The default size is 1, you can change it to be 0.5 for example or 0 and have a smaller header.

make header smaller