Customizing your Title Page (Add-in)

APA 6th Edition

What you need to know

In the latest version of Microsoft Word, PERRLA uses things called Content Controls to insert various items.  One of those items is the Title Page.

By default, the Title Page's content is locked (in your Word document) so you have to use PERRLA's Title Page icon to edit your paper's title information.

You can access the Title Page panel through the PERRLA tab in Word (it's the second from the left).

How to customize your Title Page

While PERRLA's default Title Page follows APA's guidelines, there are some professors who require students to add additional custom content.

PERRLA gives you the ability to create a customized Title Page for this reason.  However, this means that PERRLA will no longer be able to update the title information for you (Title Page, Running Head, title on the first page of the body).

This change cannot be undone within the paper.  If you want to go back, you'll have to create a new paper, move the body content over manually, then re-add your references & citations.

Here's how you can do it:

1. Open the Title Page panel in your PERRLA paper
2. In an APA Paper, expand the Optional section
3. Click Customize Title Page
4. On the confirmation screen, click Yes - customize Title Page
   This is not reversible & will stop PERRLA from updating your title information.

That's it!

While it may look like nothing changed in your paper, you can now type in & edit your Title Page.

Note: If you make changes to the Title of the paper, be sure to also update the Running Head and the title on the first page of the body.

APA 7th Edition

With the APA 7th Edition update to the PERRLA Word Add-In, customizing your Title Page is now handled much in the same way as inserting manually created references into your Reference Page.

Here's what you need to know:

1. Each PERRLA item on your Title Page is locked in a Content Control (a blue box).
   PERRLA uses Content Controls to insert and protect certain information in your papers – especially content that has specific APA or MLA requirements.  You should use PERRLA's Title Page panel to edit content that is locked in a Content Control.
2. You can add your own content outside the Content Controls.
   If you want to add your own content beside a Content Control, you will have to use the left or right arrow keys to move the cursor outside of the Content Control's blue box before you can start typing.  This is similar to placing your cursor beside a citation.
3. You can rearrange your title page & PERRLA still works!
   As long as you keep the Title Page Content Controls on the Title Page, PERRLA will continue to update them.  However, if you move them outside of the Title page, they will no longer be able to receive updates from PERRLA.