Windows

Restart Page Numbering In Word 2007

Posted by on Apr 25, 2007 | 30 Comments

In a previous article, I outlined how you can add page numbers to your document. By default, Word will use continuous page numbering. However, if your document contains multiple sections or chapters, you may want to restart numbering for each one.

Before you can accomplish this, you need to insert page breaks where you want Microsoft Word to restart the page numbers. You can the configure Word to restart numbering for each section. Begin by selecting a single section or multiple sections then complete the steps below.

  1. On the Insert tab, in the Header & Footer group, click Page Number.
  2. Click Format Page Numbers.
  3. In the Start at box, type 1.

Word will now restart the page numbers for the selected section.

[tags]Word, Word 2007, document, doc[/tags]

  • Brant

    OMG THANK YOU! This was driving me nuts. Still getting used to the 2007 architechture of no menus. I had a cover page so it was naming my first page 2 instead of 1.

  • Mario

    I have one report with 3 different sections and so I need 3 different numbering formats. I have used word 2007 help but still unable to do it. Can you please give me an example on how to do this. I have tried both previous section and next section to find the right page insertion start but still unable to do it. I have also tried page breaks. And finally google and saw your page. I hope you can help with this “simple” problem. Thanks.

  • Andrew

    hey Mario

    Dint know if you came right, but here are the correct first few steps:

    # Starting at the beginning of the document, place the cursor on the first page where you want to display the page number in a different format.
    # On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Breaks.
    # Under Section Breaks, click Next Page.
    # On the Insert tab, in the Header & Footer group, click Header or Footer, and then click Edit Header or Edit Footer to make changes in the header or footer area.

    The header or footer that contains the page number is labeled Section 2.

    The rest is pretty SE…
    Later
    Andrew

  • John Craig

    It doesn’t work in some instances.

    I have a document that was originally in Word 2003 with headers and footers on each page. I’ve saved in the new format. I added a section break for next page at the top of the doc.

    I then unlinked the header from the section 2 header and successfully deleted it. But can I do the same with the footer? NO! No matter what I do if I delete the footer in section 1 it ends up removing it from the odd page numbered pages.

    Frankly, I think Word 2007 is half-baked. I’m sorry I upgraded. I’ve been an IT professional for over 20 years now – I’m no newbie and don’t mind learning new things – but this is silly.

  • Jonathan

    Thanks so much for this and your other tips Diana. First link clicked in google and always solves the problem immediately. Cheers!

  • Evelyn Hausberger

    This is a great start, but my problem goes a bit further. The first section of my document does not need any numbering, but if I remove footer Page numbers from the section, it also removes them from the rest of the document. At the end of the document, I’d like to have a couple of blank pages (with no numbering).

    What I need is to be able to number just the middle section of the document.

    Any suggestions on how to supress page numbering on certain sections of a document?

    I’m pulling my hair out over this one – and what’s left is now grey. HELP PLEASE!!

    Evelyn

  • Marie

    I agree – it is a complicated procedure. I’m trying to put roman numerals on first 3 pages then restart numbering again on page 4. Have put in section breaks, doesn’t work. Such a simple task has turned out extremely frustrating, I give up.

  • Marion

    I’m having a slightly different problem. I need to change orientation in several places, I can’t get MS Word 2007 to continue the page numbers in each section. It automatically restarts the numbering. What a waste of time – this should be simple. I hate to say it but some days I still miss Wordperfect.

  • CGanleyVA

    Ok. If you want to number part of your document i, ii, iii and then continue with 1, 2, 3, you MUST use section breaks (next page section breaks, in fact).

    At the end of the i, ii, iii section, you must insert a “next page section break.” In the header/footer options/page numbers, say “start numbering at 1″ and rename the style to numerals rather than Roman numerals. That should do it.

    As for continuing the page numbering from section to section (MS has a tendency to restart each section with the page number 1), you can go to header/footer tools. click “next footer (or header… wherever your page number is). When you get to an incorrect page number (most likely 1), then you will go to the page number menu and say “continue numbering.”

    NOW this is important: click “go to next section” and cntrl Y. This will repeat that action of continuing the page numbering. Keep doing these two actions (next section—control y) until you reach the document’s end.

    NOW A QUESTION FROM ME: HOW CAN I MAKE MS 2007 RESTART EVERY NUMBERED LIST WITH 1 RATHER THAN CONTINUING?

  • Martin

    I use Word 2007. In the intro of my report I succeeded to get the numering in roman i,ii,iii, ect. [section break - page number restart] and the rest of the with latin numbers – that’s all fine. Thank you.
    Then I checked my table of contents and it uses all latin numbers. How do I get the contents listed with the proper roman and latin numbers. Field code looks like: { PAGEREF _Toc198831216 \h }.

  • Paul Citro

    What I used to do in Office 2003 in seconds, takes me minutes in 2007. This program drives me up the wall.

  • Truth

    Unforunately, this doesn’t work for the Y in Page X of Y, which adds in the new section pages, even though told not to by unclicking Link to Previous and by following your suggestion above. MS has made this procedure seemingly more difficult in Word 07, and provides terrible/useless help on this software, this topic.

  • Janet Masters

    I agree with Evelyn Hausberger in that I want to SUPPRESS PAGE NUMBERING for certain pages. This simple feat is no longer possible in Word 2007 – and Microsoft does not recognize that the users are unhappy. Their software engineers go off on their own and revamp a XperfectlyX mostly good application.

    If anyone out there in geekland can tell us how to suppress page numbering (without breaking the document into separate documents), please help us!!!

  • Amalia

    you just saved my life ;) , and my workpaper , tks

  • http://www.trimaxxpublishers.com CDGrant

    I agree! I am about to lose a book contract because I cannot properly format my manuscript header/footer/number to begin on the 23rd page of the document! HELP! LOL

  • Me

    Once you have put in a section break, you have to unlink the two sections, or else the page numbering change you make in one section carries over to the other section. If you double click on the footer, at the top of the page, in the ribbon, there is a highlighted button that says “Link to Previous Section” in the Navigation tab. If you click on it, it will unselect it, and you can delete the page number in the footer of the section you don’t want them on. I thought I was losing my mind for a while there!

  • http://noumanali.com Nouman Ali

    10. To give PAGE NUMBERS in Roman Numerals and Arabic Numerals in the
    same document:
    You will have to create two Sections, one for the prefatory parts, second for text parts
    and then insert numbers.
    Follow theses steps:
    Move to the last page of prefatory parts, on that page your cursor should be in the end of
    page. Then on the tool bar, click at Insert Break Section Break Types
    Next Page
    (Now you have created two sections of the document successfully)
    Go to Page Numbers Format select Roman Numerals and select
    Start at (i) (This will give roman page numbers to the selected prefatory parts)
    Now for the second section i.e. Text parts go to the first page of Text Parts. Your cursor
    should be at the top of First page of Text parts.
    Go to Page Numbers Format Select Arabic Numerals and Start at
    (1).
    You can use same sections to omit page numbers at the title page and start giving
    numbers from the next page.

  • Stacy

    So it really matters WHICH MENU I added my page break from. It needed to be in the

    Page Layout under Page Setup

    otherwise it wouldn’t work. Thanks.

  • Daniel

    I HAVE THE SOLUTION. I take it a lot of you are writing Appellate Briefs because your formatting issues are the same as mine.

    In Word 2007, you have to divide the sections you want to be numbered differently in distinct sections.

    PROCESS:

    1) Put the cursor where you want a new section of numbering to start.
    2) Go to PAGE LAYOUT -> BREAKS -> section breaks _ then select CONTINUOUS
    3) IMPORTANT PART= Open up the FOOTER, then click “LINK TO PREVIOUS”. Then it becomes its own distinct part.

    When you unclick “link to previous” in the FOOTER/HEADER part, you make it like a separate word document for the footer.

  • Daniel

    I noticed I was a little ambiguous when I said “click ‘link to previous”.

    LINK TO PREVIOUS should be unselected. But when you first click it, you will unselect it, because it is already highlighted.

  • Don

    I have a document in Word 2007 with page numbering problems. When I insert a page number in the footer of the first section and select to start numbering with 1, Word displays it as page 2 and continues from there. In the next section (not linked to the first), it displays page 1 as 1. In the next section (also not linked to previous), it display the first page as page 2 again. All section starts are showing as starting the numbering at 1.

    The sections are shown by Word correctly (section 1, section 2, etc.) I’ve tried to trick Word (heh) by inserting a continuous section between the correctly-displayed section and the next one that starts at page 2 but it doesn’t change things. Any suggestions?

  • Chris

    Just an FYI for anyone coming here and trying to follow this procedure… This procedure ONLY works if you have used the built in automatic “insert page number” function in Word 2007. I went round and round with this issue, and found that my problem had to do with how I had formatted my footer. Rather than using the built-in page number footers (most of which are ridiculously simplified, and conveniently wipe out everything else you’ve done in the footer up to then), I inserted a page number field. When you enter that field, you enter the formatting to use for that field. It can be manually edited in the footer of each section, and the “start with number” editing mentioned above works, but the actual number format will ONLY change if you edit the field itself. I ended up removing the field and reinserting a new one, to get the problem fixed.

    Now I’m fearing the table of contents updating will fail as well. It’s amazing how little (but arguably very important) details like this just whizzed right past the Microsoft quality and testing department. Each successive version of Office seems to further complicate the easy stuff, and lose or break features, rather than improve the whole experience.

  • Yellojello

    Thanks for the help…

    Key Points:

    - Section Breaks
    - Check or Uncheck Different First Page (For Each Section)
    - Check or Uncheck Link to Previous Section (For Each Section)

    Took me quite a bit of time though. Ayyyeee…

  • http://NA RcBrownsvilleSaxet

    Thanks to everyone especially CGanleyVA your detailed steps helped alot. it took me about 2hrs to figure this out.

  • prince samson

    hey andrews u rock man…..was brkng my head…..thnks dude

  • Rasmus Stouby

    Page numbering in words 2007 should get someone fired.

  • joV

    Thanks for the info. Took forever to sort it out but eventually got it. Page numbering in Word 2007 is the perfect example of user unfriendly programming

  • jitender

    i have a problem in word to insert page like 1,2,3………..
    it always display the message that {PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT} pls help me to from this problem and send ur ideas in my id

  • js

    Also useful to include a tip on how to PREVENT Word from restarting page numbers on each new section:
    1. Go into the section affected
    2. Doubleclick the footer/header containing the page number
    3. In the header/footer dialogue, choose ‘format page number’ icon (hand holding page with hash)
    4. Under the Page Numbering section, select ‘Continue from previous section’

  • walid

    Thx alot ! It was great bcoz it was explained very simply !