Section Breaks, Part 7

A fellow editor asked, “How do I make page numbering continuous after a section break in Microsoft Word?”

Continuous page numbering

With your cursor in the section where you want the page numbering to be continued, go to the Insert tab, Header & Footer group (on the far right), Page Number option, as shown below in Figure 1.

Insert - Header & Footer - Page Number — Figure 1. Page numbers

In the dropdown list, select Format Page Numbers…, as shown below in Figure 2.

Insert - Headers & Footers - Page Number - Format Page Numbers — Figure 2. Format page numbers

In the Page Number Format dialog box, Page numbering group, select the “Continue from previous section” radio button, as shown below in Figure 3.

The section’s page numbers will now continue from the previous section, i.e., the section’s first page number will be one higher than the last page number in the previous section.

Note: You can also set the starting page number to whatever you like, and you can make the section heading number show with the page number, with whatever separator you want between the section number and the page number.

Isn’t it simple when you know how!

Microsoft Word requires a section break when there is a change to page margins, orientation or size, or to the footer or header.