Have you ever tried to format page numbers and got so frustrated you felt like just slinging your computer off your desk? Formatting page numbers in Microsoft Word seems like a simple task, but there are instances where all of the pages within your document may not require a page number or the page numbers are not in sequential order. For example, you may have multiple title pages that would not have a page number and you would need to restart numbering the pages after the title page.
In Microsoft Word, you can insert page numbers into your document by clicking on insert and then page numbers. Once you click on page numbers, you can choose the placement, alignment, and format of the page numbers. In order to handle the complex situations that were mentioned earlier, you will need to insert section breaks. You can do this by clicking on insert and then break. Under section break types, choose continuous. This will create section breaks for all of the pages in your document. In order to manipulate the sequence of the page numbers, you will first need to click on view and then header and footer. The header and footer toolbar should appear somewhere on the page. In the toolbar, there is a button labeled link to previous. If it is highlighted, you will need to click on it in order to be able to interrupt the sequence. Once it is not highlighted, you can go to the page number and delete or renumber it without affecting the sequence of numbers on the previous pages. However, making those types of changes will affect subsequent pages, so you may need to repeat the same steps on some of those pages.
Formatting can be simplified immensely once you know the proper steps to take. It can improve speed and efficiency as well, so hopefully tips similar to the ones presented in this article can help you in the future.