Custom first page with fancyhdr

Question

I'm using the package fancyhdr to format my footers and headers, with my name in the header and a n of m pages format for the footer. Like so:

\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{} % clear all header and footer fields
\fancyhead[C]{Name}
\fancyfoot[C]{\footnotesize Page \thepage\ of \pageref{LastPage}}

By default, the fancy page style only affects the pages after the first page. I know I can set the first page to the fancy page style using \thispagestyle, but I only want the first page to use the footer, not the header. Is there a way to create a custom style that just the first page will use?

Answer 1

The \fancypagestyle command can be used to create custom styles:

\fancypagestyle{firststyle}
{
   \fancyhf{}
   \fancyfoot[C]{\footnotesize Page \thepage\ of \pageref{LastPage}}
   \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} % removes horizontal header line
}

Then just use \thispagestyle{firststyle} on the first page, immediately after \maketitle (if that is used).

Answer 2

The best strategy is probably to redefine the plain page style that LaTeX applies automatically with \maketitle in the article class or with \chapter in the report and book classes:

\fancypagestyle{plain}{%
  \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}%
  \fancyhf{}%
  \fancyfoot[C]{\footnotesize Page \thepage\ of \pageref{LastPage}}%
}

Answer 3

A solution not constrained to cases where \maketitle is used and hence is perhaps more flexible:

\usepackage{ifthen}
...
\rhead{\ifthenelse{\value{page}=1}{\bfseries p1-title}{p2-and-following-title}}

MWE:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\usepackage{ifthen}

% \usepackage[top=10mm, bottom=10mm, left=10mm, right=10mm,includehead,includefoot]{geometry}

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\lhead{}
\chead{}

\rhead{\ifthenelse{\value{page}=1}{\bfseries The performance of Black Swans}{second page}}

\lfoot{From: K. Smith}
\cfoot{To: Jean A. Cory}
\rfoot{\thepage}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}

\begin{document}

\lipsum

\end{document}

Answer 4

It might be the case that the first page is not showing the desired fancy style because you are using \maketitle in it. \maketitle automatically resets the pagestyle to plain.

In that case, simply adding \pagestyle{fancy} after the \maketitle command should solve the problem:

\maketitle
\pagestyle{fancy}   % add this after maketitle

Answer 5

Another possibility: Instead of hard-coding something into the header or footer, use something like this:

\fancyhead[<where>]{\myCurrentHead}
\fancyfoot[<where>]{\myCurrentFoot}

Then dynamically re-define \myCurrentHead and \myCurrentFoot content on the fly. The headers and footers will apply the most recently seen values, at the time the end of the page is reached. The values can be styled. And, the values can be empty, equivalent to an omitted header or footer (without changing the page style).

I have used this for a collection of short stories, where the author's name appears in verso header, and the story title in recto header. Change the current content at each new story start.

Might be problems if the size of content (such as line count) changes, but I have not tested that.