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Sections and Numbering in Word 2003

In this article, we look at section breaks with a particular emphasis on page numbering.

SECTION BREAKS AND PAGE NUMBERING


By Michael Barden

In a recent Office for Mere Mortals newsletter, we covered the basics of creating and manipulating headers and footers in a Word document. Last week we looked at section breaks and how they can be used to further customize your document’s headers and footers .

This week we would like to expand on both of these subjects, based on the comments and experiences of two of our valued readers, and with a particular focus on page numbering.


STARTING AT NUMBER ONE

A typical document may consist of a title page, document revision history, and table of contents, followed by the actual document content and a number of appendices. To further confuse things, most documents follow a number of different numbering conventions within the same document.

By default, page numbering in Word starts at “1” in the footer of the very first page of Section 1 and continues incrementing across all sections to the very last page of the document. In many circumstances however, you will want to reset the numbering and numbering format for each section within a document.

The title page for example, will not have a page number. The subsequent pages before the main content of the document will then probably be numbered in Roman Numerals (i.e. I, II, III, IV). Finally, the main content of the document will be expected to display normal page numbering (i.e. 1, 2, 3). If you then consider a possible appendix, you may even be looking at a third numbering scheme.

Each of these logical parts of the document belongs in a new section. After all, a new section can have independent formatting settings within a single document as we talked about last week, and this includes page numbering.

DIFFERENT NUMBER FORMATS IN THE SAME DOCUMENT

To begin with, break your document into logical sections. These section-breaks will correspond with the places where you want one page-numbering system to end and a new one to begin.

Next, add a simple page-numbering system to your document by either using the “Insert | Page Numbers” dialog, or clicking “Insert Page Numbers” in the “View | Headers and Footers” toolbar.

Even though you have section breaks throughout your document, the numbering system should be continuous across all sections. This behavior is controlled by the “Continue from previous section” option in the “Page Number Format” dialog box. The “Page Number Format” dialog box can be accessed by clicking the “Format Page Number” button in the “Headers and Footers” toolbar, or by navigating to “Insert | Page Numbers” and then clicking the “Format” button.

To set the page numbers for each section to restart at the number “1”, place the cursor at the beginning of each section, and call up the “Page Number Format” dialog box. Instead of keeping the “Continue from previous section” option selected, click the “Start at” radio button and select “1”.

Since we don’t want the numbering to simply restart in the same format for each section, we also need to select the “Number Format” within this same “Page Number Format” dialog box from one of the following:



  • 1, 2, 3, …
  • – 1 – , – 2 – , – 3 – , …
  • a, b, c, …
  • A, B, C, …
  • i, ii, iii, …
  • I, II, III, …

Thus, with only a few section breaks and a basic understanding of the “Page Number Format” dialog box, you can create professionally numbered documents.

PAGE NUMBERING DEFAULTS MAY DIFFER

One reader wrote in to say that page numbering will restart at “1” for each section by default in her configuration of Word. This can be troublesome and leads to a strange looking “Table of Contents” page. Whilst we were unable to replicate this using Word 2003 (and Word 2001 for Mac OS), it is certainly something readers with different configurations of Word should be made aware of.

For people who find this is the case, or who simply wish to make their document numbering continuous across sections, the simple solution is the reverse of what we described above. Begin by placing the cursor at the beginning of a section and call up the “Page Number Format” dialog box. Select the “Continue from previous section” radio button and repeat for each section.

TAKE CARE WHEN REMOVING SECTION BREAKS

Another reader wrote in with an interesting point to make on how formatting changes when a section break is removed.

Trish D told us: “One thing people should be careful with or aware of when headers or footers are not linked to the previous section is that when a section break is deleted, the header/footer will revert to those below the deleted section break rather than those above it.”

While this functionality is there by design in Word, it doesn’t seem very intuitive. When you delete a section break, the text that preceded the section break becomes part of the section that follows. Therefore, the text that follows the section break has precedence and so the formatting (page numbering within headers and footers included) are “filtered up” as the sections are merged.

Our reader then explains that: “what this means is that if the user wants to keep the header/footer from the page above they must click on the ‘link to previous’ button before deleting the section break.”

That way, the header or footer will “filter down” from the section preceding the section break to the section following the section break before the section break is deleted and the sections are finally merged.

We think this is sage advice!

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