You can now choose a different kind of number, such as Roman numerals, for this section.īecause the rest of the document is in a separate section that is not linked to this one, this numbering will stay in its own format and will not flow into the other sections. On the Page Number Format Dialogue box that appears, click the arrow at the side of the list that says Number format. Click on Page Number in the menu bar and then on Format Page Numbers. Double-click in the footer where you are showing your page numbers to reveal the Header & Footer Tools menu item. Now to add some class, let’s go back to the section holding your table of contents. Because you’ve unlinked the sections from one another, the page numbers in the other sections will remain in place. If you scroll up to your title page and notice that there is still a page number there, simply highlight and delete it. You can do this for every section of your document. You can start the page numbering all over again at 1, or any number you want. On the Page Number Format dialogue box that appears, change Continue numbering from previous section in the Page numbering section to Start at: and select a value. Word will want to continue page numbering from the previous section. Click on Page Number on the menu bar and then Format Page Numbers. Be sure to unlink the header or footer in this new section from the previous one.ĭouble-click in the header or footer area where you want to format your page numbers. Now go to the end of your table of contents and repeat the steps above to create a separate section for the rest of your document. You now have separate footers for section 1 (title page) and section 2 (table of contents) and you can format them separately. All headers and footers in the document are linked by default, so you have to unlink them.Ĭlick once on this to unlink the table of contents section from the previous one. The box that says Link to Previous will be shaded. On the menu bar you will see the Design tab of the Header & Footer Tools. Unlinking Your Sectionsĭouble-click somewhere in the header or footer where you want your numbering to start - say, the first page of your Table of Contents. (Clicking ¶ again will hide all these.) If you do this, you will see a double dotted line that says “Section Break (Next Page)” where you have created your new section. You will also be able to see any section breaks that you have inserted. This will reveal all the nonprinting characters in your document, such as carriage returns and page breaks. Helpful Hint: I suggest you click the ¶ symbol on the Home tab of your toolbar. Everything from the next page onward is another section. You have now made a separate section of your title page. The first thing to do is to create some sections in your document.Ĭlick at the end of the text on your title page.Ĭlick Page Layout, then Breaks. If you haven’t, simply insert them using one of the many available methods. This exercise assumes that you have already created page numbers in your document. Or you can link the sections so that the formatting flows through from one to the next.

Page numbering will start on the first page of your document and continue to the last one.īut if you divide the various parts of your document into sections, you can treat each one separately. The default behaviour for headers and footers is that they will all look the same. You have already inserted a footer that has page numbers in it, but Word, not knowing any better and wanting to be helpful, has started numbering at the beginning and has put a 1 on the title page, a 2 on the table of contents page and so forth. Let’s say you are working on your Magnum Opus, which consists of a title page followed by a table of contents and then the body of your text. But the best way to handle a variety of numbering and formatting issues is by using sections in your document. If all you want to do is keep the page number off your title page, there are several methods, which I will not go into here. So how do we organize and format all this? And (especially in academic documents) there is numbering in the front matter that is often in Roman numerals. When we open a book, regular page numbering usually begins after the front matter (preface, table of contents, dedication, epigraph). She didn't want the actual numbering to start until after her table of contents and introduction. Read on to learn more!Īn author recently asked me how she could keep the page numbers in her document from appearing on the title page. In this blog from the archives, former TEC Editor Chris Cameron teaches you the ins and outs of working with page numbering in Microsoft Word.

How to edit footer in word document