There are several situations when you might want to add page numbers in your document. Some examples are when you are writing a report or compiling a manuscript for a book.
You can add page numbers in the header (the top part of the document) or the footer (the bottom part of the document). Most documents (e.g. books, reports, etc.) have page numbers in the header, as it is more convenient for the reader.
You can use different methods to add page numbers in your Google Docs document. In this article, we will be talking about three of these methods.
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- Double-clicking the header or footer
- Going to the ‘Insert’ menu
- Going to the ‘Format’ menu
We will also be talking about how you can change the format of your page numbers. This includes things like their font style, colour and alignment.
Also, we wrote this article for complete beginners so you can follow along even if you’ve never used Google Docs!
Let’s get started.
Method 1: Double-clicking the header or footer
This is the most convenient method of adding page numbers and it saves you time and effort. All you have to do is double-click the header or footer to type page numbers.
Now, let’s learn the steps for this method.
Step 1: Open your Google Docs document.
First, open the Google Docs document in which you would like to add page numbers. To do this, go to the Google Docs homepage at docs.google.com. Then, select a document under ‘Recent documents.’ Make sure to sign in to your Google account.
If you don’t already have a document you would like to edit, you can create a new one. One way to do this is by clicking on the plus sign at the top of the screen to create a blank document. You can also select one of the several templates Google Docs offers for resumes, notes, etc.
Note that some of these templates already have page numbers. If you found a template you would like to use that has page numbers, you don’t have to follow the remaining steps.
Here’s an example of a template with page numbers:
Step 2: Double-click on the header or footer.
Next, decide where you would like to add page numbers. Do you want to add them at the top corners or the bottom corners of the page?
If you want to add page numbers at the top of the page, double-click on the top part (header) of the document.
If you want to add them at the bottom of the page, double-click on the bottom part (footer) of the document.
Step 3: Click on ‘Options’ then select ‘Page numbers.’
When you double-click on the header or footer, you will see an option called ‘Options.’
Click on this and select ‘Page numbers’ from the menu that appears.
Step 4: Add page numbers.
When you click on the ‘Page numbers’ option, a dialogue box will appear where you can add page numbers. You can change the options as you like.
For example, if you don’t want the first page of your document to be numbered, uncheck the ‘Show on first page’ option.
You can also change whether you want your page numbers to start from 1 or some other number. This is useful if your document is a continuation of a previous document.
Once you’re done, click on ‘Apply.’ The page numbers will be inserted in your document.
(Optional) Step 5: Edit your page numbers.
You can also format the appearance of your page numbers. By default, your document’s normal text format will also be applied to your page numbers. The page numbers are also aligned to the left. In this section, we will be talking about how to change these defaults.
To change the alignment of your page numbers, just go to the toolbar and choose one of the alignment options.
You can also change the numbers’ font size, font colour, background colour, etc. from the toolbar.
Note that the changes you make to the page numbers on one page will also apply to the page numbers on all the other pages.
Method 2: Going to the ‘Format’ menu
This method is a slightly longer way of doing the same thing as the previous method. Below are the steps.
Step 1: Click on the ‘Format’ tab.
First, click on the ‘Format’ tab at the top left corner of the screen (to the right of the ‘Insert’ tab). This will open the Format drop down menu.
Step 2: Select the ‘Page numbers’ option.
From the menu, select the ‘Page numbers’ option. This will open a dialogue box.
Step 3: Adjust the page numbers settings.
Like before, you can adjust the page numbers setting from the dialogue box. You can change whether you want to add the page numbers in the header or footer, which number you want to start from, etc.
Once you’ve made all the changes, click on ‘Apply’ to insert the page numbers.
(Optional) Step 4: Format your page numbers.
To change the font options, alignment, etc. of your page numbers, double-click on the numbers. Then, highlight the page numbers and change the options from the toolbar
Method 3: Going to the ‘Insert’ menu
The next method of inserting page numbers that we’ll be talking about is by going to the ‘Insert’ menu.
The benefit of this method is that it visually displays the different page number styles. All you have to do is click on one of them to quickly insert page numbers. You don’t have to take the additional step of changing the alignment of your page numbers.
Here are the steps for this method.
Step 1: Click on the ‘Insert’ tab.
Click on the ‘Insert’ tab at the top left corner of the screen.
Step 2: Click on ‘Page numbers.’
From the drop down menu that appears, select the ‘Page numbers’ option. This will open another menu.
Step 3: Choose a style for page numbers in your document.
From the four options for page numbers style in the menu, pick one.
If you want to change other aspects of your page numbers, click on ‘More options’. Here, you can change other defaults (e.g. starting page number) in the dialogue box.
Once you’re done making the changes, click on ‘Apply.’
To format the page numbers, you can double-click on them and change the font, colour, etc. from the toolbar.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading this article till the end! Here’s a brief summary of everything we covered.
You can insert page numbers in Google Docs by following one of three methods. First, you could double-click on the header or footer, click on ‘Options’ and add page numbers from there. You can do the same thing by going to the ‘Format’ menu.
A quick way of adding page numbers with the alignment you want is by going to the ‘Insert’ tab. From the menu, select ‘Page numbers.’ Here, you will see the four page number styles and you can just choose one of them. Select ‘More options’ to make more changes.
We hope you found this article useful!