NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, January 2012
Working with Page Numbers in Word 2007
By Nancy DeMarte,
Columnist, Office Talk, Sarasota PCUG, Inc., FL
April 2011 issue, Sarasota PC Monitor
http://www.spcug.org
ndemarte (at) Verizon.net (click to email author)

Adding page numbers to a document seems like a simple task. You open your document, position the cursor, and, on the Insert tab in the Header and Footer group, click Page Number. But Word offers several customizations for this process. It all depends on where you want your page numbers to appear and how you want them to look.

Inserting Page Numbers
Your first decision is where you want to position the page number: in a header, footer, or in the margin. The most common place is in a footer. Fortunately, the Footer gallery has many footers which include page numbers. Click the Insert tab, then Footer, and scroll to see the gallery choices. Click a design to make it your footer.

If you find a footer you like which does not include a page number, it is possible, although not easy, to add a page number to the footer. To do this, insert your footer choice and double click the footer area to select it. You will notice that a Header and Footer Tools tab appears above the Ribbon whenever a header or footer is selected. Put your cursor in the footer where you want the page number to appear. Because many of these gallery footers contain tables, you may have to press Ctrl+tab to set a tab stop within the table cell in order to put your cursor exactly where you want it.

Once the cursor is set, under Header and Footer tools, click Page Number. Click "Current position" which opens the Number Style gallery. Click a design for your number from the gallery, and it will appear in the footer. Warning: If you choose an option other than "Current position," such as "Bottom of the page," the page number will replace the footer instead of adding to it.

An easier approach is to insert the page number first, and then add other elements and information to your footer. To do this, on the Insert tab, in the Header and Footer group, click Page Number. Choose "Bottom of the page," then click a number style from the list, making sure the design puts the page number in the area of the footer where you want it to appear (left, center or right). To insert content after the page number in the footer, press the End key, then the Tab key. Then enter the content, such as author's name or date. You may need to use the Tab key to adjust the position of content items.

Formatting Page Numbers
Office 2007 is full of new galleries, which are collections of preformatted content which can be added to a document with a single click. To see the page number gallery of styles, start with a document that does not contain page numbers. On the Insert tab, click Page Number and then one of positions, such as "Top of the Page." A gallery opens that shows page numbers in various positions on the page. Some include graphical elements, others text, such as "Page X of Y," as in Page 3 of 14. More options can be found in the Building Blocks Organizer. Click the Insert tab -- Quick Parts -- Building Blocks Organizer and scroll to the Page Number gallery.

To change the actual number type, such as from numeric to Roman numerals, click the Page Number icon and select "Format Page Numbers." Choose the style you want from the drop down list.

Of course, you can always select just the page number and format it yourself. Double click in the area where you've put the number, then select the page number to reveal a mini-toolbar just above it. Here you can easily change the font and apply attributes such as color, boldface, or italics. To change the size of the number using the mini-toolbar, either click the large or small capital A icon, which grows or shrinks the selected number, or change the font size number. The new format is copied immediately to all other page numbers in the document.

Removing Page Numbers
The easiest way to remove all page numbers in a document is to select one of them and press the Delete key. If you have created a footer which includes a page number and other content, the content will remain even if the page number is deleted.

Managing Page Numbers
Often you will not want a page number to appear on the first page, which might be a cover sheet or title page. It isn't difficult to remove the page number from the first page, but don't just delete the number 1. This will cause all the other page numbers to disappear as well. Instead, remove the first page number using the "Different first page" command. Let's say you have added a footer which contains the author's name and the page number. Double click in the footer area of the first page, which opens the Header and Footer Tools tab. Click to put a checkmark next to "Different first page" in the Options group. Your footer and page number will be removed from the first page. The second page will contain the footer and page number 2. You can now insert a footer that does not include a page number on the first page, if you wish, without changing the numbering on the rest of the pages.

If you want the first page to be unnumbered, but the second page to display page number 1, insert a footer with page numbers in the document, then double click in the footer area of the first page. Under Header and Footer Tools, select "Different First Page." Then click Page Number -- Format Page Numbers. In the "Start at" box, type 0, and then click OK.

It is also possible to change the numbering style or format in different sections or chapters of a book or long document. A section within a long document can, for instance, include no page numbers, even though the surrounding sections are numbered.

Working with page numbers is just one example of the depth of options available within Microsoft Office programs. The more you become familiar with the options and how to use them, the closer you will come to fully utilizing these programs.

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