Adding Page Numbers by Default in Word

Although this doesn’t have anything directly to do with the coming version of Word, I figured I’d help out a fellow b5 blogger and maybe some other people with this post.

Anne over at The Golden Pencil had a recent post venting her frustrations with goat dancing with Microsoft Word. All she wants to do is have page numbers show-up on a Word document by default Another Word Pet Peeve – Another Goat Dance. Well, here you go Anne.

You could add page numbers by using headers or footers, or you can use the quick Insert > Page Numbers option from the Insert Menu. Anne’s problem though is that she has to keep doing this on every document, but sometimes forgets to until she prints a multi-page document out and realizes it. Thus wasting time, ink and a few trees in the Pacific Northwest.

For changes like this where I always want something as a default I just change the Normal.dot template that Word bases all new documents on at start-up. Specifically, I usually change my Normal.dot template for things like default fonts, sizes, and styles. And it’s super easy!

1. Just navigate to the following directory on your system: C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
2. Open the “Normal.dot” file and open it with Word.
3. Use the “Insert > Page Numbers …” option in Word
4. Make any other default changes you’d like for all new documents to use as I do if desired
5. Save your document (make sure you save it as Normal.dot again in the same location as before)

Voila! All done. Now every time you start a new document, you’ll have your page numbers ready and waiting for you.