When working with long documents or reports, there will often be different page numbering schemes for different parts of the document. The table of contents, introduction, appendix, notes pages, etc. may all have different page number styles or start on page numbering at a different place. Dividing the document into sections will greatly help when working with page numbers. (For information about document sections, see: Inserting breaks.)
While the process of adding page numbers is similar in Microsoft Word and Google Docs, there are enough differences that the steps will be separated. To see the steps for Microsoft Word, skip to "Working with page numbers in Microsoft Word." To see the steps for Google Docs, skip to "Working with page numbers in Google Docs."
Acquiring the practice document
If you are beginning this course at this point, you will need to access the practice document.
Downloading the practice document for Microsoft Word
If working in Microsoft Word, you will download and extract the document.
To begin downloading the practice document, click the following button:
The file begins to open in a new window of the web browser. Before the document will open and can be edited, we need to make a copy of it.
Move to the new browser window.
To copy the document file, in the browser window,
Click
A copy of the file is now open and, by default, is saved in your Google Drive. The filename now has the words "Copy of" at the beginning.
Working with page numbers in Microsoft Word
For this document, the table of contents page does not need a page number. In Microsoft Word, the author's note page will use Roman numerals. The remaining content will use cardinal numbers.
We will begin by inserting page numbers and then modifying them.
Inserting page numbers in Microsoft Word
When adding page numbers to a Microsoft Word document, we have the choice of where we want the page numbers to appear: header, footer, or the margins of the page. Today we're going to put the numbers in the footer.
To insert the page number, on the Insert tab, in the Header & Footer group,
Click , Click Bottom of Page, Click Plain Number 3
Formatting page numbers in Microsoft Word
The number one (1) appears in the footer of the table of contents page. We want to remove the number from the first page and have the numbering start with the Roman numeral one (i) on page two.
Although we used section breaks in our document, the footers are all linked. Therefore, to use a different style of numbering, or to start numbering in the middle of a document, we will need to break these links.
NOTE: If the format of the page numbers was previously modified in your copy of Microsoft Word, it may not be necessary to remove the link.
If the sections in your document are linked, there will be an indicator on top of the footer:
To uncheck the Different First Page checkbox, on the Design tab,
uncheck the checkbox next to Different First Page
Move to the second page of the document.
To select the footer on the second page,
Double-click the footer on the second page
To remove the link between the first and second sections, on the Header & Footer tab, in the Navigation group,
Click
The link between the first and second sections has been removed. We can now format the page numbers for each section independently.
To select the footer on the first page, if necessary,
Double-click in the footer on the first page
To remove the page number from the first page, on the Header & Footer tab, in the Navigation group,
Click , Click Remove Page Numbers
The page number has been removed from the first page. The second page is still numbered.
Renumbering pages in Microsoft Word
We want the page containing the author's note to be the first official page of the document and numbered using a Roman numeral. Once that task is accomplished, we will number the remaining content pages starting with one (1).
To select the footer on the second page of the document, if necessary,
Double-click in the footer on the second page
To open the Page Number Format dialog box, on the Header & Footer tab, in the Header & Footer group,
Click , Click Format Page Numbers...
The Page Number Format dialog box opens:
This dialog box shows that the document is using cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) and that the page numbers will continue from the previous section.
To change the number format, in the Page Number Format dialog box,
Click , Click i, ii, iii, ...
To start the numbering at i, in the Page Number Format dialog box,
Click the Start at radio button, Click
The number on the second page changes to i. It may be necessary to adjust the remaining page numbers to start with one (1).
To select the footer,
Click in the footer on the third page of the document
To open the Page Number Format dialog box, on the Header & Footer tab, in the Header & Footer group,
Click , Click Format Page Numbers...
To start the numbering with one (1),
Click the Start at radio button, Click
To close the footer and return to the document text, on the Header & Footer tab, in the Close group,
Click
The remaining pages are numbered. We can now update the table of contents to reflect these changes.
To select the table of contents,
Click the table of contents
To update the table of contents,
Click
In Microsoft Word for Mac, to update the table of contents,
Click , Click Update Table...
The Update table of contents dialog box opens.
To update the entire table,
Click the Update entire table radio button, Click
The table of contents now reflects the revised page number formats.
Working with page numbers in Google Docs
For this document, the table of contents page does not need a page number. Google Docs does not currently support the use of Roman numerals in page numbering. Therefore, we will remove the number from the first page and have the second page (Author's note) numbered one (1) and subsequent pages numbered after that.
We will begin by inserting the page numbers and then modifying them.
Inserting page numbers in Google Docs
When adding page numbers to a Google Doc, we have the choice of where we want the page numbers to appear: in the header or in the footer. Today we will put the numbers in the footer.
We do not want a page number on the table of contents page. Therefore, we will remove that page number and renumber the remaining pages.
To insert the page numbers, on the menu bar,
Click Insert, Click Page numbers, Click
The page numbers appear in the footer. The numbering starts on page one with the number 1. We want to remove this number and have the numbering start on the second page with the number 1. To do this, we will need to unlink the first and second pages. This works because of the section breaks we inserted earlier. The first and second pages are separate sections. Unlinking the sections allows us to number them independently.
NOTE: Google Docs does not support the use of other number formats (upper or lower case letters or Roman numerals). While it is possible to manually change the number format, those changes will not be reflected in the table of contents.
To indicate that the first page will differ from the rest of the document, in the footer,
Click the Different first page checkbox
To remove the page number from the first page, in the footer,
Click , Click Remove footer
To select the footer on the second page,
Double-click in the footer on the second page
To unlink the footer from the previous footer, if necessary,
Click to uncheck the Link to previous checkbox
When the sections were unlinked, the page numbers disappeared from the second page. We can use the Page numbers dialog box to return the page numbers and have them start with number one (1).
To open the Page numbers dialog box, in the footer on the second page,
Click , Click Page numbers
The Page numbers dialog box opens:
This dialog box shows that the page numbers will be applied to the current document section (section 2), that the numbers will be in the footer, and will continue from the previous section.
We can use the dialog box to modify the page numbering to start at 1 on page 2 of the document.
To start the page numbers with page 1, in the Page numbers dialog box,
Click the Start at radio button, Click
To right-align the page numbers, if necessary, on the toolbar,
Click
The page numbers now start on the second page of the document, Author's note, and continue to page 4, Bibliography. Take a moment to look at the document and confirm the page numbers are correct.
When we know the page numbers are correct, we can update the table of contents.
NOTE: If the page numbers are not correct, it may be necessary to unlink or link sections of the document.
To confirm that the page numbers are correct,
Scroll through the document
To select the table of contents,
Click the table of contents
To update the table of contents,
Click
The table of contents now reflects the revised page numbering.
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