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Quick Word page numbering question

Y

yg17

macrumors Pentium
Original poster
Aug 1, 2004
15,030
3,009
St. Louis, MO
This is probably a really dumb, easy question. Anyways, I'm typing up a paper in Word that's due tomorrow (nothing like waiting until the last minute!) and the professor wants page numbers in the footer. Easy enough. But, we also have a cover page, and that doesn't count as a page. I know how to do different headers/footers for the first page. So if I leave the footer for the first page (cover page) blank, I can go to the 2nd page (first page of text, and what should be numbered page 1) and insert the page number. But, it starts at page 2. is there a way to make page 1 start at the second page without having to make a separate Word file for the cover page? Thanks
 
sorry, no solution for you. the closest I've ever gotten was getting it to automatically number all the pages EXCEPT my first page (the cover page). It's always annoyed me. I've even resorted to inserting txt boxes at the top of each page with the number I want to get it to work.
 
I don't have Word, but it seems you could just put the Cover Page at the end of the document and edit the footer on that page not to show the page number. Not elegant, but it keeps you from having to create another document.
 
From the (end of the) title page, Insert> Break> Section Break (next page). Then in the footer of the essay, deselect the "same as previous" button in the footer bar, select the "format page number" button, and set it to start at 1. Enjoy. :)
 
Well first of all you insert the footer and add the number (by adding page number not by typing a number) where you want it to be placed. Then you select "Different first page" on the toolbar.

There are a few interesting options on that toolbar.
 
yg17 said:
This is probably a really dumb, easy question. Anyways, I'm typing up a paper in Word that's due tomorrow (nothing like waiting until the last minute!) and the professor wants page numbers in the footer. Easy enough. But, we also have a cover page, and that doesn't count as a page. I know how to do different headers/footers for the first page. So if I leave the footer for the first page (cover page) blank, I can go to the 2nd page (first page of text, and what should be numbered page 1) and insert the page number. But, it starts at page 2. is there a way to make page 1 start at the second page without having to make a separate Word file for the cover page? Thanks
Click to expand...

I don't use Word as a rule as I prefer Pages or LaTeX myself but you're nearly there. When you are in the footer, click on the # symbol (Format Page Number) and set "Start At" to start from 0. Since you have made the first page not show the page number it doesn't matter that it is page 0. The first numbered page will now be page 1 as you want.
 
GreatDrok said:
I don't use Word as a rule as I prefer Pages or LaTeX myself but you're nearly there. When you are in the footer, click on the # symbol (Format Page Number) and set "Start At" to start from 0. Since you have made the first page not show the page number it doesn't matter that it is page 0. The first numbered page will now be page 1 as you want.
Click to expand...

I used to do this too, but if you need to print, say, page 5–6 of your essay, or convert some pages to PDF, etc., it can create headaches. (Trust me on this, I learned the hard way.) Oh, and you also use section breaks to do this in Pages.
 
telecomm said:
I used to do this too, but if you need to print, say, page 5–6 of your essay, or convert some pages to PDF, etc., it can create headaches. (Trust me on this, I learned the hard way.) Oh, and you also use section breaks to do this in Pages.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I tried it both ways and your way, if I create a cover page and two numbered pages, and then print page 1 and 2 I actually get all three, and my way (with cover page set to 0) I get pages 1 and 2 as I would expect. This is with Word X.
 
GreatDrok said:
Interesting. I tried it both ways and your way, if I create a cover page and two numbered pages, and then print page 1 and 2 I actually get all three, and my way (with cover page set to 0) I get pages 1 and 2 as I would expect. This is with Word X.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, that's weird. (I use LaTeX for all of my papers now too.)

When I ran into this problem (way back with Office 95, I think), it had to do with application (and printer) handling of page 0. Lots of other apps didn't seem to like it!

Edit: Then again, there are actually 2 page 1s when it's done this way!
 
telecomm said:
Hmmm, that's weird. (I use LaTeX for all of my papers now too.)

When I ran into this problem (way back with Office 95, I think), it had to do with application (and printer) handling of page 0. Lots of other apps didn't seem to like it!

Edit: Then again, there are actually 2 page 1s when it's done this way!
Click to expand...

:D

It's always fun this stuff. The number of problems we have with Office users on Windows at work when they try to print documents is beyond a joke. Life would be so much better if everyone just used LaTeX :cool:

Anyway, for Mac users, the page 0 thing works fine :)
 
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