If you have a document that needs page numbering and you want it a certain style, you need to know how to add page numbers on your word document. In this post I’m going to walk you through the steps. Learn how to add page numbers on whatever page you want as well as how to edit them. I hope you find this useful and easy to use.
Inserting Page Numbers
You have a choice where you want the page numbers to appear. It’s best to either put them in the header or the footer. This way it’s a one and done as it will now affect all the pages. However, if you add them anywhere else on the page you have to manually add them per page. This is hugely time consuming and unless there is a very good reason for it, I would suggest staying far away from this.
First Steps
Ensure that you don’t have anything else in the header or footer. If you do, when adding the page numbers, the information is deleted.
If you want to have a specific header or footer with other information as well as the page numbers, you can do so with quick parts. I’ll go through this advanced method below.
Inserting Page Numbers Step by Step
- On the Insert tab, select Page Number.
- You are presented with a number of different options. Just select the one you want.
The different options are as follows:
Top of page is the header.
Bottom of page is the footer
Page margins is an area that acts just like headers and footer. The only difference is that it’s on the side of the page.
Current position just puts it wherever your curser is on the page.
It’s important to note that if you use this option, it will only insert the page number on that specific page, not on all the pages.
If that’s all you need, then great, you have inserted the page numbers into your document.
How Do You Number Pages in Word Starting on Page 2?
As is often the case when you want to add page numbers, you have a cover page and want to start numbering only on page 2. You don’t want anything on the cover page. So how do you go about doing this?
This is also pretty simple and here are the steps you need to go through to do so.
(Again, bear in mind here that this will empty out the contents of the header or footer depending on whether you want to put them. If you already have a specific header and want to put the numbers inside it, you have to use a different method which I’ll explain later on in this post)
- Insert the page numbers the normal way: Insert tab, and the click on Page Number.
- On the ribbon, you see a new tab called Header and Footer. Select the option named Different first page.
- This removes the page number from the first page and only starts from the second.
You may see that on the second page the number is actually two and not one. This can happen depending on your previous actions. However, there is nothing to worry about. Do the following to change it to one:
- Highlight the number and right click. Then select Format Page Numbers:
- On the pop up box, select Start at and put in the number 0.
- This gives the second page the number 1 as you want.
- Go to the first page header and manually delete the number 1 from it.
You have successfully added page numbers from page 2!
How Do I Start Page Numbers on a Specific Page in Word?
If you want to start page numbering on a specific page you have to change the settings of where you want to start from.
Let’s say you want to start numbering on page 3 because you have a long table of contents. In this case you need to add a section break to the page and then start from there. Here are the instructions:
- Click the Pilcrow button so that you can see the paragraph marks. This just makes it easier for you to be able to see what you are doing without having to just guess.
- Navigate to where you want the page number to start again from one. For my example, I’m going to do so on page 4.
- On the layout tab, click the Breaks Button and then click the Next Page option:
- This creates a new section that you can see on your document:
- On the Insert tab, select Page Number and select the one you want. For this example, I’m just going to go with the top one:
- Your page numbers are now in this section. However, if you see, they have started on the page number in the actual document. In my case, since I’m on page four, it shows 4:
The reason for this is because we need to format the number to make it start a new section as well.
- Highlight the number and right click. Then select Format Page Numbers:
- On the pop up that appears, select the Start at box and then type in 1:
You have successfully changed the number and you now know how to start page numbers on a specific page in Word.
How Do I Make Page Numbers Different?
Now that you have added your page numbers, you may to change how they look. That is pretty easy in truth.
After you have inserted the page number you see that it has been inserted into either the header, footer or sidebar, whatever one you have selected.
- Highlight the number and you will see the normal format pop up box appears:
- I’ve chosen the most basic of page numbers. I want to change it to Times New Roman and I want it to have a blue background. As well as this, I want to change the text color to white to give it a nice contrast in comparison to the rest of the page.
- All you have to do is the same as if you are doing any other font change:
- And this is how it looks. It will be this way on all of the pages where I have this number set:
In truth then, once you have added the page number, you can style it however you want to. You are not burdened by having to select the page number style that is built in. It is fully customizable and can fit your needs.
Using Quick Parts to Add Page Numbers
If you want to have a specific header in your page then I suggest that you use quick parts. In fact, you can use quick parts to create a beautiful header that has page numbers included. You can learn more about quick parts in the post that I’ve written about them but for now, let’s see how to add page numbers with quick parts.
Quick parts are little bits of code that you add to your document in order to make it work better for you. They have lots of unique styles and are very versatile. Whenever you want to make a template that other people will follow, it’s essential that you know how to use quick parts to make everyone’s life easier and quicker.
How to Add Page Numbers as a Quick Part
- Open the header by double clicking the top part of the page. If this doesn’t open the header, click on the Header button in the insert tab:
- Select Edit Header from the bottom of the menu:
- This opens the header. The main body of the text will be grayed out and there will be a curser in the header.
- On the Insert tab, click the Quick Parts button:
- Select Building Blocks Organizer:
- On the dialog box that pops up, you will be able to scroll down and see many different types of page number styles. There is even a preview to see how they look:
- Select the one that you want and then click Insert.
- You will see the page number has been inserted into your header of the page.
Please pay attention to what the gallery says. If you try and insert a page number that only works for the bottom of the page in the header it simply will not show up. If you really want that one to appear in the top of the page, you have to copy it, put it in the header and then create it as a new building block. You can learn how to do so on that specific post but that is not part of the subject of how to add page numbers.
In Summary
I’ve gone through how to add page numbers in a few different ways as well as how to edit them. I really recommend getting to learn how to add them with quick parts. It’s not that much more difficult and is really worth it in the end. I hope you have enjoyed this post and, as always, if you have any questions or comments please let me know below. Good luck in adding page numbers on a Word document!