Sunday, October 7, 2007

Restarting page numbering in word

This question gets asked a lot, so I thought I'd answer it here: "How do I omit the page number from my title page (plus however many other Table of Contents / Epigraph pages, or whatever else you've stuck in up at the start), and then have it start at page 1 at the start of my first chapter?"

1. Start out with no page numbering at all.

2. At the top of the page that you want to start numbering from, do the following: under the Insert menu in Microsoft Word, choose Break, and then choose one of the "section break" types.

2.a. If you've already got a page break properly in place, choose "Continuous" to not mess that up.

2.b. If you want to insert a page break with your new section, choose "Next Page" to do so.

3. Make sure your cursor is still on that same page that you want to start the numbering from, and then once again go to the Insert menu. Choose Page Numbers, use whatever settings you like, and then choose Format on the Page Numbers popup. Under the Formatting popup, change the "Continue from previous section" radio button to say "Start at 1" instead.

This divides your document into two "sections," each of which can have independent page numbering. You can actually use this same technique to divide your document as many times as you want, and have all sorts of different page numbering schemes (such as no page numbering at the very start, then roman numerals for an Introduction, then regular Arabic numerals for the main content, and then lettering for appendixes).

But, for manuscripts, remember that you'll just want to keep it simple and just have the Arabic numerals for the main content, starting in your first chapter.

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