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Select Insert > Page Number, and then choose the location and style you want.
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If you don’t want a page number to appear on the first page, select Different First Page.
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If you want numbering to start with 1 on the second page, go to Page Number > Format Page Numbers, and set Start at to 0.
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When you’re done, select Close Header and Footer or press Esc.
Tip: To get back to a header or footer to make changes, double-click in the header or footer area.
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On the Insert tab, click the Page Number icon, and then click Page Number.
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Select a location, and then pick an alignment style. Word automatically numbers every page, except designated title pages.
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To change the numbering style, select Format and then choose the formatting you want to use.
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Select OK twice to close both dialog boxes.
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Easily add page numbers to the header or footer in your Microsoft Word document
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- Inserting (Mobile)
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Adding page numbers in Microsoft Word is easy! Whether you’re writing a 10-page essay or a thesis paper, there are a variety of ways to customize the page numbers. Use the Insert tab to quickly add page numbers. From there, you can change the formatting and numbering options. This wikiHow guide will show you how to add page numbers to your Microsoft Word document on Windows and macOS, as well as in the Word mobile app on your Android, iPhone, or iPad.
Things You Should Know
- On desktop or mobile, go to the Insert tab, then select «Page Number» to add page numbers.
- Double-click the page number to make changes to the font, color, or style.
- Double-click the header or footer, then go to Page Number > Format Page Numbers for additional options.
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Click Insert. This is in the tab menu bar at the top of Word. Alternatively, double-click the top or bottom of the page to open the Header or Footer editing menu.
- Don’t forget to save your work as you go!
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Click Page Number. This opens a pop-up menu for choosing where to place the page numbers.[1]
- In the Insert menu, Page Number is near the center.
- In the Header & Footer design tab, Page Number is on the left.
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Choose a page number position. This can be in the header or footer, and located left, center, or right.
- You can also toggle the option to include the page count in the page numbering (e.g. 1 of 3).
- Selecting a page number position will open the “Header & Footer” tab.
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Double-click a page number. This will select it and show a pop-up menu with options for changing the font, color, and style. This change will edit every page number automatically.
- You could even cross out the page numbers if that’s your style.
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Start numbering on the second page. If you want the first page to have no numbering, and start at 1 on the second page, follow these steps:
- Double-click the header or footer to open the Header & Footer design tab.
- Check the “Different First Page” checkbox.
- Click Page Number then Format Page Numbers.
- Select “Start at” and change it to 0.
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Restart page numbers by using page breaks. If you want to start a new numbering later in the document, you’ll need to use a page break.
- Place your cursor at the beginning of the page you want to restart the numbering on.
- Go to the Layout tab, then click Breaks.
- Select Next Page in the Breaks options menu.
- Double-click the header or footer in the second section. This will open the Header & Footer design tab.
- Click Page Number then Format Page Numbers.
- Select the radio button labeled «Start At,» then select «1» to restart the page count at 1.
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Use «Format Page Numbers» for additional changes. This can be located by going to Insert > Page Number > Format Page Numbers. You can change:
- The number format. You can change this to Roman numerals, letters, or another style.
- The chapter number.
- The starting number.
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Click Close Header and Footer. This will return you to editing the body of the document. Alternatively, press Esc to close the header and footer editor.
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Open your Word document on your Android, iPhone, or iPad. It’s easy to use Word on your phone or tablet to insert page numbers into your document.
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Tap the more button. While in Edit mode in the Word mobile app, tap the more button (three horizontal dots).
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Tap Home. Then, select Insert to switch to the Insert menu.
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Choose Page Numbers. Then, select the placement location for the numbers.
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Format the page number. After selecting the placement, double-click the page number. Then, tap the text edit button (the icon with the letter A and a pen). You can change the font, size, color, and more!
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Go to Headers and Footers. This is in the Insert menu. You can set a different first page, change how odd and even pages look, or remove the page numbers entirely.
- When working in Online mode, any changes made in the app will appear on your desktop version of Word.
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Question
In the insert box, the page number icon is grayed out and not available for use. How do I activate it?
Kyle Smith is a wikiHow Technology Writer, learning and sharing information about the latest technology. He has presented his research at multiple engineering conferences and is the writer and editor of hundreds of online electronics repair guides. Kyle received a BS in Industrial Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
wikiHow Technology Writer
Expert Answer
The page numbering feature isn’t available in certain layouts. Go to View and select Print Layout. If this doesn’t resolve the issue, try restarting and/or updating Microsoft Word.
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If you plan on creating a complex header or footer (like your name, or a title), try and add the page numbers first. They will be much easier to work with.
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About This Article
Article SummaryX
1. Click Insert.
2. Click Page Number.
3. Select a position.
4. Choose a style.
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Contents
- 1 How to Add Page Numbers in Word
- 2 How to Format Page Numbers in Word
- 3 How to Start Page Numbers over in Word (Restart Numbering)
- 4 How to Skip the First Page Number in Word
- 5 How to Change Types of Page Numbering in Word
- 6 How to Leave the Header and Footer or Design Bar
- 7 Extra: How to Add Line Numbers in Word
- 8 Extra: How to Add a Page Border in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word page numbering
Page numbers in Word are a valuable tool to help you order pages after printing or quickly reference information for other readers. Today, we’re going to show you how to add page numbers in Word, format them, and skip the first page number if necessary.
Inserting page numbers in Word is easy, modifying them not so much
Though inserting page numbers in Word in the base form is quite easy, it gets more complex once you start to modify them to suit your exact needs. Microsoft Word has a variety of styles, placement, and formatting choices that can make things feel a little overwhelming.
Not to worry, though – we’ll be breaking down all the major options so you can quickly get your page numbering in Word looking exactly how you want. Let’s get started:
If you’re wondering how to insert page numbers in Word, the first place you might think to look is the “Page Number” tool. Thankfully, you’d be right. This makes the entire process very simple:
- Open the “Insert” tab of the ribbon and press “Page Number > Bottom of Page > Plan Number 2”
Naturally, you can choose a different style for the page number if you like, such as the accent bar. You can also choose to have the number at the top of the page if you wish.
How to Format Page Numbers in Word
After inserting page numbers in Word, you may want to format them to match the styling of the rest of your document. You can quickly change aspects such as font, text color, size, center/right/left justification, and more. Here’s how:
- Double-click your page number and adjust the formatting options in the fly-out
You should already be familiar with the options here – they’re the same as they are for any other text. Once you’ve finished modifying the number, you can double-click anywhere that’s not in the footer to return to your document.
How to Start Page Numbers over in Word (Restart Numbering)
If you want your page numbers restart at a certain point, you need to make use of Word’s section breaks feature. This is a useful tool in many situations, so it’s worth familiarizing yourself with:
- Place your cursor at the start of the page you want to restart page numbers on and insert a “Next Page” break
To do so, open the “Layout” tab of your ribbon, click on “Breaks” below it, then press “Next Page” under the “Section Breaks” heading.
- Double-click the page number, then press “Page Number > Format Page Numbers…” in the ribbon
To clarify, you should double-click the page number of the page you’re planning to restart the page numbers on.
- Tick “Start at” under the page numbering heading select “1”, and press “OK”
How to Skip the First Page Number in Word
In many cases when adding page numbers in Word, you’ll want to skip the first page number. This happens most commonly when you have a cover page or title page. Here’s how to make page numbers start on page 2:
- Double-click the first page number and tick “Different First Page” in the ribbon
The “Different First Page” option can be found in the “Header & Footer” section of the ribbon, which should automatically appear once you double-click your page number.
- Delete the first page number
Due to the “Different First Page” option, deleting the first page number now won’t remove page numbers from the rest of your document.
How to Change Types of Page Numbering in Word
As well as the style, position and starting position of page numbers, you can change the type of page number. For example, whether the numbers take the form of numbers, letters, or Roman numerals, and whether they use dots or dashes:
- Double-click your number and press “Page Number > Format Page Numbers…” in the ribbon
- Press the dropdown arrow next to “Number format”, choose an option, and press “OK”
The changes will automatically apply to all of the page numbers in your Word document.
How to Leave the Header and Footer or Design Bar
If you find yourself stuck in the Header and Footer or design bar with no way to edit the rest of your document, you can use the following trick:
Press the “Esc” button on your keyboard
This will instantly exit the header and footer bar and bring you back to your normal document view.
As well as page numbers, you can add individual line numbers to your document so that you can reference part of it even more easily. Just follow our linked tutorial to do so.
While you’re at it, you can add a page border to your Word document to ensure a clear margin for annotations once it has been printed. You can read our dedicated guide here to learn how to do so.
In this chapter, we will discuss how to add page numbers in MS Word. Microsoft Word automatically assigns page numbers on the pages of your document.
Typically, page numbers are printed either in the header or footer, but you have the option of displaying the page number in the left or right margin at the top or bottom of a page. To learn more about header and footer, see our previous tutorial.
Table of contents
- What is Page Number in MS Word?
- What is the purpose of page number?
- How to Simply Insert Page Number
- How to Add Different Page Number
- Steps to Hide the Page number on the first Page
- How To Add Page Number to an Existing Header or Footer
- How to Insert page number from Current Position
- Summary
A page number is the particular page number within a document, often abbreviated as page no. The document may be printed or electronic, such as a Microsoft Word document or an e-book.
Furthermore, they came in many different ways to show numbers and changed them to fit your needs. Page numbering lets you start over with page numbering if you need to number some pages differently.
In addition, you can automatically number each page of your document using page numbers. They are available in a variety of numerical formats, and they could be done to your specifications.
Page numbers typically appear in the header, footer, or side margin. Read our article to learn more about header and footer and how to adjust the page margin.
What is the purpose of page number?
The purpose of page numbers is it helps you keep your document organized, makes it easy to refer back to specific parts of your paper, and make things look more professional and well-done.
So, if you want your table of contents and introduction to be numbered differently than the main body of your document, you would have to put them in a separate section at the beginning.
Moreover, most documents use Arabic numerals in the main body, but some use Roman numerals for different parts like the table of contents, introduction, and glossary. Word also lets you set up your document this way.
How to Simply Insert Page Number
Here is the simple way How to Insert Page Numbers in an MS Word document.
- Start by Clicking the “Page Number” button in the “Header & Footer” section of the “Insert” tab on the Ribbon.
- A drop-down menu displays various possibilities for where you would like the page numbers to appear, such as at the top, bottom, etc.
The final two options allow you to format page numbers more accurately.
- When you hover over one of the first four options, a gallery of page numbers appears.
Each choice in the gallery provides a broad representation of how your page’s page numbers will appear.
- Click the desired option to have Word automatically number all of your document’s pages in that format.
In this example, the “Accent Bar” style has been applied to the “Page X” format.
- Tap the “Close Header & Footer” button on the Ribbon or double-click outside the header or footer section to return to your document.
If you place page numbers at the top or bottom of the page, the header or footer of your document opens so you can add whatever around them.
That’s the easy way to add page numbers, and it works fine if you have a simple document in which you want all the pages to be numbered and numbered in the same way.
How to Add Different Page Number
In adding Different Page Number in MS Word, you will need to divide your document into distinct sections for each component.
To do this, put your insertion point at the very beginning of your document or right before the first page of your main content if you haven’t already made that preliminary content.
- Start on the Ribbon, click the “Breaks” button on the “Layout” tab.
- Then, click “Next Page” in the drops down menu. This makes a new section start on the next page.
- Break the link between your new introduction and the main body of your work. To do so, open your document’s header or footer where page numbers reside.
- On the Ribbon’s “Header and Footer” tab, Click “Link to Previous” to break the link to the previous section’s header and footer.
- Now that you’ve broken the link, you can change the page numbers to how you want them.
- Next, open the header and footer area of any page in that first section. You’ll see the same page numbers before you made the new section break.
- Right-click on the page number and select “Format Page Numbers” from the menu that appears.
- In the Page Number Format window, use the “Number Format” drop-down menu to choose the type of numbers you want to use for the section.
- Here, we’ve used standard Roman numerals with lowercase letters. When you’re done, click “OK.”
- As you can see that the Roman numerals have been used to number the pages in that section.
- Next page below you’ll notice that page numbering doesn’t start at 1. It kept the same numbering before you added the section.
- But it’s easy to fix. Right-click on the page number and select “Format Page Numbers” from the menu.
- Select “Start At” in the Page Number Format window and type “1” in the box to the right to start the section on page one.
That concludes the discussion. You should now have two parts with distinct numbering and formatting.
Steps to Hide the Page number on the first Page
In some documents, you may not want the first page to show the page number. You can hide the first page number without affecting the rest of the pages. Here are the steps to do it.
- Double-click the header or footer to unlock it.
- From the header and footer tab, place a checkmark next to Different First Page. The header and footer will disappear from the first page. If you want, you can type something new in the header or footer, which will only affect the first page.
If you’re unable to select Different First Page, it may be because an object within the header or footer is selected. Click an empty area within the header or footer.
If you already have a header or footer and you want to add a page number to it, Word has an option to automatically insert the page number into the existing header or footer. In our example, we’ll add page numbering to our document’s header.
- Double-click anywhere on the header or footer to unlock it.
- On the Header and Footer tab, click the Page Number command. In the menu that appears, hover the mouse over Current Position and select the desired page numbering style.
- Page numbering will appear.
- When you’re finished, press the Esc key.
How to Insert page number from Current Position
Step-by-Step Instructions:
- Go to the first page for which you want to have numbered pages.
- At the top of the page, before the first line/word, click on the document to place your curser.
- Then choose Layout from the top menu. Next select Breaks – Next Page.
- Now choose Insert from the top menu and then select Page Numbers and then choose how you want them to appear in the document.
- Now highlight the page number at which you want to start the numbering. From the Header & Footer Tools menu, unclick Link to Previous.
- With the number still highlighted, choose Page Number from the top menu, then select Format Page Numbers. Under Page Numbering, choose Start At and then select a starting number.
- The last step is to go to the top of the document and click on the first page number, and then hit delete. This will remove the beginning numbering sequence, and you will be left with the numbering sequence you created later in the document.
Summary
In summary, we’ve learned how to add page numbers in a word document as well as what those terms mean. In addition, we know why we need a page number in our document to look presentable and creative. Furthermore, we have many options to apply for page numbers in different ways.
Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about formatting text, see the previous tutorial on how to add header and footer and how to adjust page margin in Microsoft Word, which are still part of formatting your documents. You can browse those guides if you are having a hard time exploring your documents.
We hope this tutorial helps you as you format your documents in MS Word.
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How to Add Page Numbers in Word
Create page numbers in Word 2013, 2016, 2019 and Microsoft 365
Updated on October 16, 2020
What to Know
- Go to the Insert tab > Page Number > Page Number > Top of Page (Header) or Bottom of Page (Footer).
- Under Alignment, select Left, Right, or Center > OK.
- To format the page numbering, click Header or Footer > Format > choose format. Double-click anywhere in the document.
This article explains how to add pages numbers to documents in Word 2019, 2016, 2013, and Word for Microsoft 365.
If your Microsoft Word document is long (or book-length), you might want to add page numbers to the header or footer. When you print a document, the headers and footers can be printed as well.
The steps for adding pages numbers is basically the same for Word 2019, 2016, 2013, and Word for Microsoft 365.
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Place your cursor at the first page of your document or where you want page numbers to begin.
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Select the Insert tab.
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Select Page Number in the Header & Footer group.
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Select Page Number again from a drop-down menu.
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Under Position, select Top of Page (Header) or Bottom of Page (Footer) to indicate where to place the numbers on the page.
Under Alignment, select Left, Right, or Center.
Select OK to save the selections and exit the menu.
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Select Header or Footer on the toolbar to format the page numbering.
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Select a format from the menu options.
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Double-click anywhere in the document to hide the header and footer areas.
Customize Headers and Footers
You can also customize the headers and footers in all versions of Microsoft Word. You do that from the same area where you added page numbers.
To begin, select Header or Footer to see your options.
In recent editions of Word, you can also get additional header and footer styles online from Office.com.
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