PAGING A WORD DOCUMENT

USING SECTION BREAKS

Daniel Adeboye | e-Learning | June 2014

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Acknowledgement

This is first and foremost Dedicated to God, who led me this way and helped me follow Him

into the Paths He had prepared for me.

I want to acknowledge my BSc (Hons) IT research supervisor, Corne Van Staden who is also

the Dean of IT faculty at Midrand Graduate Institute. She has really been very helpful and

motherly with respect to my research work. It was as she showed me her research work that

I saw first many possibilities with Microsoft word.

I also want to acknowledge Dr (Mrs) Oluwatoyin Osundiran who pushed me search out how

this could be achieved with Microsoft word and also challenged me to produce this e-Learning

material to help others. She’s also been a wonderful mum to me in company of her wonderful

husband. Thanks so much.

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Table of Content

Acknowledgement i

Table of Content ii

List of Figures iii

Introduction 1

Step One: Locate and Open Document 2

Step Two: Insert Section Breaks 3

Step Three: Insert Page numbers 6

Conclusion 8

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Locating the document you want to number 2

Figure 2: Show Paragraph Marks in the document 3

Figure 3: Locate last paragraph mark and click before 3

Figure 4: Insert Section break after cover page 4

Figure 5: Unlink sections from one another 4

Figure 6: Set format page number 6

Figure 7: Format page number 6

Figure 8: Insert page number 7

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Introduction

While in my final year in the university, I had to do a final year project (like we all do) but

much more to write a report of the project. My project report was over a 100 pages which

included as requested…the title Page, Acknowledgment, Dedication, List of figures, List of

tables, List of Abbreviations, Table of Content, Abstract; then Chapters 1-5, Conclusion,

Bibliography! (I hope I didn’t miss out any critical section). The most challenging part of

compiling my report was Numbering the entire work in a single document! You know, I had

an easy way out but it was only a display of my ignorance.

What did I do?

I actually needed no page number on my title page, I wanted roman numerals (starting from

i to maybe ix) on my introductory pages and finally numbers (starting from 1 to maybe 94)

on the body of the report. So, I created my title page separately, and then my Introductory

pages (Acknowledgment to Abstract) also separately and finally the body of my work

(Chapters 1 to Bibliography) as a separate document. So in all, I had three separate

documents for one work! I then numbered each document as I needed. Brilliant… isn’t it?

Yes but if only I knew what I know now!

Solution!!!

This write up will therefore attempt to teach you how to put Page Numbers to your report

as a single document; with no number on your title page, roman numerals on your

Introductory pages and then Numeric figures on the body of your work.

Doing this is as simple as 1, 2 and 3!

Step 1: Locate and Open Document

Step 2: Insert Section Breaks

Step 3: Insert Page numbers

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Step One

Locate and Open the Document

Where did you save the document you want to put page numbers? By default, new

documents are saved in the ‘(My) Documents’ folder. Open “My Computer” and look for

“My Documents”. Search for the file as shown in the figure below.

Figure 1: Locating the document you want to number

When you find the document, double-click it to open the document…and you’re set to go

ahead.

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Step Two

Insert Section Breaks

1. In the ‘HOME’ title tab, locate the Paragraph symbol and click it once to show paragraphs in

the entire document as shown below.

Figure 2: Show Paragraph Marks in the document

Now remember:

- First page (Title/cover page) will carry no page number,

- Introductory pages (Pp 2-4 of this document) will be numbered in roman numerals (i, ii, iii),

- The rest of the document will be numbered with figure numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

This is what we want to do:

We want to divide the entire document into three sections (with different numbering style)

as explained above.

2. Scroll down to the end of cover page and locate the last paragraph mark on that page. Click

the mouse just in front of it as shown below.

Figure 3: Locate last paragraph mark and click before

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3. In the ‘PAGE LAYOUT’ title tab, locate ‘Breaks’ and click ‘Next Page’ under Section Breaks.

Figure 4: Insert Section break after cover page

4. Do three quick things as shown in the figure below (labeled a, b, c).

- First, double-click the footer area on the cover page (a)

- Then locate and click ‘Link to Previous’ (b)

- Click ‘Close Header and Footer’ to close (c)

Figure 5: Unlink sections from one another

NB: The cover page footer shows ‘Section 1’ while the second page header shows ‘Section

2’. This shows you succeeded with this step.

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5. Repeat previous steps 2 – 4 but this time around, scroll to the end of ‘List of figures’ page

and locate the last paragraph mark on that page. Click the mouse just in front of it.

Add section breaks.

Double-click on footer area.

Unlink from previous section. Notice also ‘Section 2’ shown in the footer of ‘list of figures’

page and ‘Section 3’ shown in the header of ‘Introduction’ page.

Close the Header and Footer.

6. You can HIDE the paragraph marks by clicking the same place you clicked to show it as in

step 1 above. (This is just so it does not confuse you).

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Step Three

Insert Page numbers

1. Scroll to ‘Acknowledgement’ page and Click anywhere on that page.

2. In the ‘INSERT’ title tab, locate ‘Page Number’ and click ‘Format Page number’.

Figure 6: Set format page number

3. A dialog box appears as shown below.

- Click the drop-down under ‘Number format’ (Labelled a).

- Select the roman numeral ‘i, ii, iii…’ (Labelled b)

- Select ‘Start at’ and change to ‘i’ (Labelled c) and Click ‘OK’.

Figure 7: Format page number

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4. Now, still in ‘INSERT’ tab, Locate ‘Page Number’ once again. But this time, select your

preferred location of page say ‘Bottom of Page’. Next Select preferred type of numbering as

shown in figure below.

Figure 8: Insert page number

This should have created page numbers i, ii and iii on the ‘Acknowledgement’, Table of

Contents’ and ‘List of Figures’ pages respectively!

5. Repeat above steps 1 – 4 but this around, Scroll to ‘Introduction’ page and Click anywhere

on that page.

Format Page number but this time select figure numbers ‘1, 2, 3…’ and click ‘OK’

Insert Page number at the ‘Bottom of Page’ and that settles it all!

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Conclusion

Even the bible says “My people perish for lack of knowledge’. And someone else also said

“What you don’t know may be killing you”.

I believe you can go ahead and put page numbers to your project or research report

properly now without any problems.

All the best!