Background Info of Word Page Numbering

Microsoft Word's page numbering scheme isn't directly obvious but it isn't needlessly complex, either. Indirect might be a good term for it. Once you understand how it works, all sorts of possibilities open up. So, for the moment, forget everything you've learned or thought you know about page numbers. Let's start from some background info of this topic.

A new blank document consists of a single section. Each time you insert a Section Break into the document, the document gains a section.

In other words, if you create a new blank document, then choose Break on the Insert menu and select a Next Page Section Break, the document will thereafter consist of two sections: material from the start of the document up through and including the break represents Section 1. Material after that represents Section 2. (In some cases, Word inserts Section Breaks automatically, such as when you change the number of columns in part of a document.).

Page numbers are a Section Property, not a document property. A page's number is determined by only two factors: the "Start at" value assigned to the document section and the location of the page within its document section.

Just because a page has a number does not mean the number will appear somewhere on the page. In fact, All pages have numbers. The number never appears unless you tell Word to display it.

To view each section's page setup, please click View from main menu in that specific section, and select Header and Footer. A Header and Footer tool bar will be popped up. On this tool bar, the 2 most important buttons are the "Page Setup" button and the "Same as Previous" button. Any changes made to these 2 buttons will make the page numbering system completely different in each section.

Any section can have up to three headers and footers: the first page header and footer, odd page headers and footers, and even page headers and footers. The actual number of headers and footers available in a given section is determined by the Different First Page checkbox and Different Odd and Even Pages checkbox in the section Page Setup dialog.

Start to Number Page 1 from the 9^th Page

The following example was dedicated to the black and white cover books. If you would like to publish a color cover book, you do not need to upload the front cover page, the page inside of the front cover, the page inside of the back cover and the back cover page to our server. Yet, for the black and white cover book, you will need to upload all the pages to our server, including 4 pages mentioned above.

In this example, the 1^st page is the black and white cover book front cover page, the 2^nd page is the page inside of the front cover, leave it blank. The 3^rd and 4^th pages are the optional blank pages after the cover; this means one blank sheet of paper will be inserted between the cover and the title page. The 5^th page is the title page, usually includes the title, subtitle, and author, etc. The following page should be the copyright page with the word copyright, the symbol ©, the year, publisher and the ISBN number, etc. The 7^th and 8^th pages are the table of contents pages. You do not need to number the first 8 pages in this example. The book body actually begins from the 9^th page. Here comes an interesting question: how to number Page 1 from the actual 9^th page? Please follow the screenshots to number your pages.

Click ¶ on your Word tool bar, move your cursor to the end of 8^th page (the last ¶ sign on 8 ^th page). Click Insert from the main menu, choose Insert Break, Insert Section break types, Next page, and click OK. The whole file has then been separated into two sections, section 1, 1^st-8^th page; section 2, from 9^th page to the end of the file.

Then, position your cursor anywhere in Section 2, click View from main menu, choose Header and Footer, uncheck Same as previous button for both header and footer. This means if you insert page numbers in Section 2, the pages numbers will not be inserted to Section 1. In other words, there won't be any page numbers shown on 1^st through 8^th page.

Keep your cursor in Section 2, click Insert from main menu, and choose Page Numbers as shown below.  Select any Position and Alignment options you want, check Show number on the first page in this example.

Click Format button, choose the desired number format, and Page numbering Start at 1, click OK, OK. Actually, you can start at any number as you wish, just choose the number with which you want to start.

Page Numbering in Different Chapters

If you would like to number the pages continuously, yet do not want the page numbers to appear on the first page of each chapter; then, you need to separate the whole file into different sections corresponding with different chapters.

After you separate the chapters into sections, position your cursor to each chapter, click Insert Page Numbers, and uncheck Show number on first page. Click Format button, check Page Numbering Continue from previous section. Please refer to following screenshots.

If you want the first page of each chapter starts from the right hand side (the odd page numbers), do not forget to insert a blank page at the end of the previous chapter if the previous chapter ends at an odd page number. In our example, the 10^th page is an inserted blank page to make sure Chapter 2 starts from odd number at the right hand side of the book.