Word deleting page numbers

Today you’re going to learn how to remove page numbers in Word.

After inserting the page numbers, due to one or two reasons, you realized that you don’t need the numbered pages anymore.

Or maybe you want to remove page numbers for certain pages only, like the first page or the first three pages.

You’ve come to the right place.

Below are some of the easiest ways you can remove page numbers in your Microsoft Word document:

If you are looking for how you can remove page numbers for specific pages, scroll down to option 4 because it explains just that.

However, if what you want is to remove all the page numbers
in your document, the options are outlined below for you to explore.

Option 1: Delete page number from footer or header

This is the easiest option to help you remove page numbers as
it can be done in under five seconds. This method can be used in both Windows and
Mac versions of Word.

NOTE: Use this method if you want to remove all the page numbers from your document. But if you want to remove the page numbers of the first page, or say the first 3 pages, then scroll down to the next section (Option 4).

Without further ado, let’s get started with the steps:

• Double-click the header or footer that has the page number. Double-clicking that area will activate the header and footer sections making them editable.

• Alternatively, you can right-click and click on Edit Footer to turn the footer into edit mode.
• Now highlight the page number and press the Delete key to delete the number. It doesn’t have to be page 1; it could be any page in the document.

• Now press Esc key to exist the Header and Footer section.

After deleting just one of the page numbers, all the page
numbers in the document will be deleted.

NOTE: If there are still page numbers for some of the pages, it means that there’s a page break that divides your document into sections. In this case, delete one of the page numbers in that section in order to remove all the page numbers.

Option 2: Remove page numbers in MS Word by removing the Footer

In Microsoft Word, page numbers are inserted into either
Headers or Footers.

Deleting the pages’ Headers or Footers means deleting
everything it contains including the page numbers.

NOTE: Use this approach if you don’t have other content
(such as a Letter Head) in your Headers or Footers. The footer or Header should
only have the page numbers.

The steps are outlined below:

• Identify the section that contains the page
  numbers. Is it in the footer or the header section? Page numbers in the footer
  are found at the bottom of the pages whilst page numbers in the headers are
  found at the top of the pages.
• If the page numbers are found in the Footers,
  remove the footers by navigating to the Insert tab, in the Header
  & Footer section, click on Footer then Remove Footer.
• If the page numbers are found in the Headers,
  remove the Headers by navigating to the Insert tab, in the Header
  & Footer section, click on Header then Remove Header.

After removing the Footers or Headers in your document, Word
will delete the page numbers as well. At any point in time, you can again
insert the page numbers back into your pages.

Option 3: Using the Remove Page Numbers Command

The previous options are just shortcuts to removing page
numbers.

There’s this built-in command that allows you to remove page numbers in Microsoft Word with just some few clicks.

Here’s how to use this command:

Under the Insert tab in the Header & Footer
section, click on Page Number. A shortcut menu appears, click Remove Page
Numbers.

With these few clicks, all your page numbers should
disappear from your document.

NOTE: If this method fails, it means that the page numbers were inserted directly as a field rather than through the Insert Page Numbers Menu. In that case, use one of the previous methods instead.

Option 4: How to remove page number from first page

The above three methods only showed you how you can remove
all the page numbers from your Word document.

However, most documents and formal reports do not display
the page numbers on the first page.

If that’s the case in your case, you’re in good company.

There are two ways to remove page numbers from the first page in Microsoft Word. One involved using a command called Different First Page. And the other involved breaking the first page into its own sections so that you can delete the page number on the first page without affecting the rest of the pages.

Using Different First Page command

If you don’t want to have a multi-section document, then you
should use the following steps to omit the first page numbering:

• Open your Microsoft Word document that has the first page numbered.
• Double click in the Footer section to make it editable. This exposes all the Header and Footer commands in a suddenly-introduced Tab labeled Header and Footer.

• Click to check the Different First Page
  command.

After checking this option, the first page number will hide.

You can also achieve the same result with the following
steps:

• Click to activate the Layout or Page Layout
  tab.
• Then click the Page Setup launcher at the bottom-right
  corner of the Page Setup category.

The Page Setup dialog box should appear.

• Click to activate the Layout tab.
• Under the Headers and Footers section, click to check the checkbox labeled Different first page.
• Now click OK to apply the changes

See screenshot:

As soon as you hit the OK button, the page number on the first page disappear from your Word document.

This is how you remove page number from the first page.

NOTE: After successfully removing the page number from the first page, the second page will start numbering from 2. This means that the first page is still counted though, it is just hidden. If that’s a problem with you, you can set it to start the numbering from zero (0) so that the first page will be zero (0) which is hidden anyway, and the second page will show page number 1.

Option 5: Remove first page number by using Page Break

You can also use the break section command to separate the first
page from the rest of the pages.

This way, when you delete the first page number, it will not
affect the rest of the pages.

But without separating the first page, all the pages will get deleted even if you delete only the page number on the first page.

NOTE: Not only for the first page, but this approach can also be used to remove page numbers from certain sections in word

Without further ado, the steps are outlined below:

• Click to place the insertion pointer at the end of the first page.
• Under the Page Layout or Layout tab, click on Breaks, then Next Page.

This will insert a section break on the first page and start
the new section on the second page.

The first page is now a separate section from the rest of
the pages. However, it is not yet disconnected.

Keep reading to finally disconnect the initial page from the
rest of the pages.

• Scroll to the second page and double-click on the footer section to make it editable. This will also introduce the Header and Footer tab.
• From the Header and Footer tab, unlink the second page from the first page by clicking on the Link to Previous command.

• Now go to the first page and delete the page
  number there.

To delete the page number from the first page, double-click in the header or footer area, select the page number and press the Delete key.

You’ll notice that the number on the first page gets removed
without deleting the remaining page numbers.

Conclusion

If you are able to follow the steps on this page very carefully, I’m confident that you can solve any issue concerning how to remove page numbers in Microsoft Word.

However, if you still have issues, you can mention it in the
comments section below for more clarifications.

Thank you very much for landing on this page.