Apple Numbers 13.1 - Cannot type in header or footer!!!

Try starting afresh with a new settings file.

Quit Numbers and paste this path in Finder's Go / Go To Folder... dialog box:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Numbers/Data/Library/Preferences/

From the window that opens drag this file to the desktop. Do not leave a copy behind in this directory.

com.apple.iWork.Numbers.plist

Restart Numbers and try the headers and footers. If it doesn't help and you want to get your old settings back, quit Numbers and put the file on the desktop back to its original location. If it works you can trash the file that was dragged to the desktop; you might have to set some Numbers settings back manually, like default zoom, ruler, etc.

I've tried your suggestion and removed the pref file. Restarted Numbers and still cannot type into the header fields. BTW, I've reinstalled the OS, deleted and reinstalled numbers.app. Any other suggestions?

Gary's suggestion does NOT work on my mac mini. It is quite frustrating to hear others can do it, but it really does not work for many people. I am using Numbers 13.2 and Sonoma 14.2.1 on a 2023 M2 Mac Mini.

Numbers version 12.2.1 works correctly. On my 2023 MacBook Pro M2 Sonoma 14.1.2. I could enter text into a Numbers document just like Gary demonstrated. How do you go back to an old numbers version?

After working with several Apple tech's, we ended up creating a new user account and tried Numbers header/footer input. It worked just fine. So I ended up creating a new user account and transferred everything to the new user account. No more issues. I deleted the old user account about a month later since I had no issues with the newly created User account.

Ok. Have the same problem as everyone else here. Only just realised that typing in the footer was broken.

Mine is Sonoma 14.4, Numbers version 13.2. Deleting the pref file does not work.

I can add page numbers, page counts and dates using the insert menu. But no text option there.

But as a workaround, I found that you can paste any text. It's painful... but a simple example will be;

I had to copy and paste "Page ", insert Page number using menu, "of ", insert count using menu.

Hope this workaround helps until the text insert if fixed.

My printer page won't allow me to type in title, date, page numbers or anything either but difference is, I am using Numbers version 12.2.1 (7035.0.161)

It just started doing this about a month ago (May 2024) (at least that's when I noticed it). In the meantime, I am taking my header row and typing my title there, using a repeat print so it will show on all the printed pages. It is frustrating and seeing how I have an older version than you, is not comforting. Is there a fix from Apple yet?

In Print View (after going to File> Print) click one of the three boxes in the header or in the footer, and type away.

SG

Perfect. It's not obvious but to get this dialog box you need to click on the top of the page in print view to get this formatting choice.