In this article we are going to cover some basic ways to improve the overall presentation and professionalism of your Microsoft Office Word document with page breaks, headers & footers, and page numbers. The following features can also be used on the online version Microsoft Word.
Using Page Breaks
When writing a Word document, you may notice that the layout of your pages are not presented in the way you would like such as some sections starting on the previous section’s page. If you would like to manually choose where a new page starts within your Word document, then you can utilize the ‘Page Break’ feature.
To create a page break, place your cursor where you would like one page to end and the next to begin. Then, navigate to the ‘Insert’ ribbon and then find ‘Page Break’. You will be able to see if a page break has been successfully inserted if your cursor automatically navigates to the part of the Word Document with the page break.
If you no longer want the page break where you initially inserted it, you can easily remove it. To remove a page break, navigate to the ‘Home’ ribbon and then find the three dots ‘…’. Then, select the three dots ‘…’ and navigate to ‘Show/Hide ¶’.
After selecting ‘Show/Hide ¶’, you can then see the different paragraphs and page breaks within the Microsoft Office 365 Word Document. You are then able to delete any unwanted paragraphs, page breaks, or spaces if required.
Using Headers & Footers
Important information such as the name of the document, the chapter heading, creation date, and document version are necessary for any professional documentation. Therefore, headers and footers are necessary to ensure that this information is shown on the necessary pages without conflicting with the body of the Word Document.
The header is text that is placed at the top of the page within a Word document, while a footer is placed at the bottom of the page. To insert a header or footer, navigate to the ‘Insert’ ribbon and then find ‘Header & Footer’.
Once you have selected ‘Header & Footer’, you can then edit both the header and footer at the same time. Word provides the option to enter the text on the left, middle, and right of the document. Once you have entered the required text in both the header & footer, you can simply click on any part of the document to save the header & footer.
Within the online version of Microsoft Word, you will not be able to see the page formatting, such as margins or page breaks, cover pages, or headers and footers within the editing view. To see the page formatting, navigate to the ‘View’ ribbon and then find ‘Reading View’.
The ‘Reading View’ can be seen below. This view of the Word document cannot be edited; however, it does include all the page formatting such as the headers and footers.
Page Numbers
Page numbers are essential for any professional documentation as it allows the reader to keep track of the different pages of the word document. Page numbers are numbers that can be placed at the top or bottom of a word document. To insert page numbers, navigate to the ‘Insert’ ribbon and then find ‘Page Numbers’.
Once you have selected ‘Page Numbers’, you can then select where on the document you would like the numbers to go. Furthermore, you can choose to include the page count. This means that instead of the page numbers being individual numbers such as ‘4’ it will instead show as ‘4 of 11’. See below the various options for inserting page numbers.
Once you have selected where you would like the page numbers to be positioned, the overlay below will appear. This showcases where on the footer/header the page numbers will be. You can simply click on any part of the document to save the page numbers.
As mentioned previously in this article, you will not be able to see the page formatting within the editing view. To see the page formatting, navigate to the ‘View’ ribbon and then find ‘Reading View’.
The ‘Reading View’ can be seen below. This view of the Word document cannot be edited; however, it does include all the page formatting such as the page numbers.
Furthermore, page numbers can be deleted by navigating to the ‘Insert’ ribbon and then select ‘Page Numbers’. The option ‘Delete Page Numbers’ can be seen at the bottom of the drop-down menu as seen below. If this option is selected, the page numbers will be deleted.
Further Reading
For further reading about page breaks, please visit: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/insert-a-page-break-7613ff46-96e5-4e46-9491-40d7d410a043
For further reading about headers & footers, please visit: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/insert-a-header-or-footer-d832a10c-ef2e-4cff-988a-02bd582db12f
For further reading about page numbers, please visit: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/insert-page-numbers-9f366518-0500-4b45-903d-987d3827c007#