Fixing Page Numbering in Word: A Beginner’s Guide

If you’re facing a page-numbering problem in a Word document and you want to use the “Page X of Y” AutoText entry in the footer without it appearing on the title page, here’s a step-by-step solution:

Problem: You have a 20-page document and you want the footer to show “Page X of Y.” You don’t want the footer on the title page, so you use the “Different First Page” option. However, the total page count is still 20, making the page after the title page say “Page 2 of 20.” You want it to say “Page 1 of 19” because the title page doesn’t count.

Solution: Word uses two fields to create the “Page X of Y” entry: Page and Numpages. You can adjust the Numpages field to get the correct page count, and use Word’s Start At setting to make the second page start at 1.

Steps to Fix the Page Numbers:

Open the Footer:
Scroll to the footer area of your document and click inside it.

Show Field Codes:
Press [Alt][F9] on your keyboard to display the field codes. You should see this: Page { PAGE } of { NUMPAGES }.

Edit the Numpages Field:
Highlight the { NUMPAGES } part.

Press [Ctrl][F9] to create a new nested field. You should now see: Page { PAGE } of { { NUMPAGES } }.

Adjust the Page Count:
Click between the two opening braces { { and type =.

Click between the two closing braces } } and type -1.

Your code should now look like this: Page { PAGE } of { = { NUMPAGES } -1 }.

Update the Fields:
Highlight the entire footer text.

Press [F9] to update the fields.

Switch Back to Results Mode:

Press [Alt][F9] again to switch from field codes to the actual numbers. You should now see: Page 2 of 19.

Starting Page Numbers at Zero:

Set Page Number Format:

While still in the footer, click on Format Page Numbers in the Header and Footer toolbar.

In the Start At text box, enter 0 and click OK.

By doing this, Word will number the title page as 0 (which won’t be visible) and change the second page to Page 1 of 19.

Now your page numbering should be correct!