Page numbers are an important part of many documents that span multiple pages. They help readers navigate through the document and keep track of where they are, as well as communicate clearly with others about references. In this blog post, I’ll cover adding and removing page numbers in a Microsoft Word document.
Let’s begin with adding page numbers in Word documents.
Adding page numbers to Microsoft Word documents
- Select the Insert tab in the upper left corner of the window.
- Select Page Number in the Header & Footer section.
- Choose where you want the page numbers to appear in your document.

Notice that once you add page numbers, your ribbon menu shows additional settings for the header or footer (wherever you placed the page number). You could, for instance:
- Have a cover page without a page number by selecting Different First Page and/or
- Have odd pages’ numbers aligned left, and even numbered pages aligned right

You might also wish to have your second page start page numbering as page 1 (set Start at to 0 and select Different First Page), or use letters or Roman numbers instead of numbers. You can do this by selecting Page number | Format Page Numbers.

Next, let’s take a look at how to remove the page numbers.
Removing page numbers from Microsoft Word documents
- Go to Insert | Page Number, then select Remove Page Numbers.

- If the Remove Page Numbers option isn’t available or if some page numbers remain, double-click in the header or footer area where the page number is present, select the page number, and press Delete.