How to Get a Web Page Header/Footer Printed on Every Page

Is there a way to get a web page header/footer printed on every page?

It can be done with tables -- and I know I'm going to risk a downvote by suggesting using tables for layout - but we are talking IE6 here which isn't known for its fantastic CSS support :-)

If you set a CSS style as follows:

thead { display: table-header-group; }
tfoot { display: table-footer-group; }

Then when you create your HTML, render your body as:

<body>
<table>
   <thead><tr><td>Your header goes here</td></tr></thead>
   <tfoot><tr><td>Your footer goes here</td></tr></tfoot>
   <tbody>
     <tr><td>
     Page body in here -- as long as it needs to be
     </td></tr>
   </tbody>
</table>
</body>

Yes it's not good (tables vs CSS), it's not ideal, but (importantly for you) it does work on IE6. I can't comment on Firefox as I've not tested it there, but it should do the job. This will also handle differnt sized pages, differing font sizes, etc. so it should "just work".

If you want the header and footer to appear on printed media only, then use the @media parameters to do the right thing:

@media print {
    thead { display: table-header-group; }
    tfoot { display: table-footer-group; }
}
@media screen {
    thead { display: none; }
    tfoot { display: none; }
}

Note

As of July 2015, this will still only work in Firefox and IE. Webkit-based browsers (cf. Chrome, Safari) have long standing bugs in their issue trackers about this if anyone feels strongly enough to vote on them:

The comments below this question tell me this is now resolved in Chrome. I haven't checked myself :-)

The original bugs against Chrome (for reference) are:

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17205
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=24826
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=99124

How can I add headers and footers to every page of html content I'm printing from Mobile Safari?

There is a bug in WebKit, that makes it currently impractical in Safari. Here is the link to this issue.

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17205

Print header/footer on all pages (Print Mode)

If you're willing to switch over to tables for your layout (not necessarily ideal), you can do it with the <thead> and <tfoot> elements. They'll print at the top and bottom of every page:

<table>

  <thead>
     <!-- Will print at the top of every page -->
  </thead>

  <tbody>
     <!-- Page content -->
  </tbody>

  <tfoot>
     <!-- Will print at the bottom of every page -->
  </tfoot>

</table>

Another option is to use display table-header-group and table-footer-group but cross-browser support isn't great:

#header {
  display: table-header-group;
}

#main {
  display: table-row-group;
}

#footer {
  display: table-footer-group;
}

How to Get a Web Page Header/Footer Printed on Every Page

Is there a way to get a web page header/footer printed on every page?

How can I add headers and footers to every page of html content I'm printing from Mobile Safari?

Print header/footer on all pages (Print Mode)

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