A simple example

K. Grant is writing a report to Dean A. Smith, on ``The performance of new graduates'' with the following page layout:



The performance of new graduates
page body
From: K. Grant To: Dean A. Smith3



where ``3'' is the page number. The title: ``The performance of new graduates'' is bold.

This is accomplished by these commands following \pagestyle{fancy}:

\lhead{}
\chead{}
\rhead{\bfseries The performance of new graduates}
\lfoot{From: K. Grant}
\cfoot{To: Dean A. Smith}
\rfoot{\thepage}
\setlength{\headrulewidth}{0.4pt}
\setlength{\footrulewidth}{0.4pt}
(The \thepage macro displays the current page number. \bfseries is the LATEX2e's way of selecting bold face.)

This is now fine, except that the first page does not need all these headers and footers. To eliminate all but the centered page number, issue the command

\thispagestyle{plain}
after the \begin{document} and the \maketitle commands.

Alternatively, issue

\thispagestyle{empty}
if you do not want any headers or footers.

In fact the standard classes have the command \maketitle defined in such a way that a \thispagestyle{plain} is automatically issued. So if you do want the fancy layout on a page containing \maketitle you must issue a \thispagestyle{fancy} after the \maketitle.