Hi,

I am aware that this is my first post on these forums but I have an urgent problem.

I am using Word 2003, I have never had an issue using the autotext 'Page X of Y' in a footer before to display page number but I have a document at the moment which is doing weird things.

I am navigating to the top of the first page, then go to View -> Header and Footer and then click within the footer and tab to the middle, then select page X of Y.

However the first page is marked 'Page 0 of 13', the second and third pages are marked 'Page 2 of 14', the fourth pag is marked 'Page 1 of 14' and so on like this. The true number of pages in my document is 14 pages.

It seems like the pages are being randomly numbered, and obviously I'd like then to be numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 14, and also not to begin numbering at 0.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to format this correctly?

Any help is greatly appriciated especially as this is urgunt, its a college project report thats go to be handed in in a couple of days :s

Many thanks,


Dave

Page number formats, including restarts, are section-specific, and they are determined by the settings of the Page Number Format dialog box (click the Format Page Number button on the Header and Footer toolbar).

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

To continue what Stefan told you...
You apparently have multiple "sections" in your document. These are denoted by section breaks and you may or may not have intended to insert a section break. In each section you can tell Word to begin numbering a a certain number or continue from the last section. See Sections / Headers and Footers in Microsoft Word 97-2003

Thank you both for your advice

When I got home out of despiration I created a new document in Word 2010.

My document contains several sections which I have called 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 etc, it has a title page and a TOC.

When I created the new document I merely copied the title page, then did Insert Next Page, then copied across the TOC and again did Insert Next Page.

I then copied each section across (1.0, 2.0..) starting each section on an inserted next page.

When I did the page numbering on this document it worked fine, and saved it in 2003 format.

Ideally I would like to exclude the title page and TOC from page numbering and start on what is the third page, and to exclude the first to pages from the total page count aswell, happy to get my other problem sorted first though!

Thanks again,
Dave

See How to set up a document with front matter numbered separately 2007 & 2010

This sounds like a sections problems issue. In the paragraph group, under the home tab, click on the Paragraph symbol. Then scroll through your document and try to find the errant section breaks. Delete them out if you find any.

I have a post on extra symbols in word, and one on page numbering in Word.

It is also crucial to distinguish between logical sections in a document and Word sections, which are a totally different animal. Sections / Headers and Footers in Microsoft Word 2007-2010 (same as previous link except adapted to the Ribbon interface)

"inserted next page" Are we talking an inserted "next page" section break?

The TOC should be automatically generated, not something that you need to copy across. How to create a table of contents in Microsoft Word