Page Numbers

Page numbers can be the bane of many a person's Word document.

There are so many choices. Do you just want the page number? Do you want the Page of So Many Pages? Do you want the Roman numbers (iii) and then have it change to Arabic numbers? (3)

Word can do all of these. It's just figuring out how to get it to behave.

When you choose insert page numbers, Word will ask top or bottom, and then where do you want the number to be positioned. There are more choices the later the version of Office you have. Once you have made your choices, you'll find that Word has put your page number into a footer or header. Why is this a good thing? If you are going to be making edits to the body of the text, Word will automatically keep track of the where the page numbers should be, and make sure they are there.

Now you have page numbers, but you wanted Roman numbers. To change to Roman or if you wanted to add the word Chapter or some other prefix to the number (Section 45 – Page 3), you would do that with Page numbers formatting. Go back to where you choose page numbers, and you will see a number of choices

The number format is where you can choose what page number format you want to use.

Notice how you can include a chapter number. Notice that it asks what style your chapter starts with. One of the lessons coming up soon is styles. Styles are a set of formatting and items that Word needs to keep track of for things like table of contents.

The next option in Page Number formatting is whether to continue from previous section or start at. The main purpose that I have used this is when I want to switch from Roman to Arabic numbering. You would normally keep the page number continuing from the previous section.(Sections are important items when you want to change your paper layout; when you want to go from one column to multiple columns and back again; and any other items that Word absolutely needs to obey.

Sections can also get you in trouble. I was working on a document that had been touched by a number of volunteers. Somehow, they had the document going from page 5 to page 7.No page 6.The material wasn't missing anything; just the page number was missing. The culprit was Sections, and a "don't copy from previous section" in the footer. Once I killed that (a 10 second action), the problem was solved.
One thing that I've noticed on 2010, and don't remember in 2007, is that they now have a remove page numbers.

Give it a try and let me know if you have any questions or problems.
Lexi