MacMost Now 733: Adding Page Numbers in Pages

Learn how to add page numbers to the bottom or top of your word processing documents in Pages. You can also add the total number of pages. Find out how to get the page numbers to appear on the left and right sides of facing pages.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost Now. On today's episode let's look at adding page numbers to your Pages documents. 
So let's create a new Pages document here and we will just use the blank word processing template. Now say we want to have page numbers at the bottom of each of our pages. The way to do that is to add it into the Footer.
First, let's go and view things showing the layout. This will make it a little easier for us to see things. Here's the Header, the main body, and at the bottom the Footer. Let's increase the size here of the page view even more so we can see this a little more easily. So there we go, we have the Footer there at the bottom. 
So now we want to insert the page number here. So we can do that pretty easily by clicking Insert and then there is various things we can insert here. We can say Page Number and right there it will show #1. So actually I will paste a bunch of text into here, I will put some sample text, and you can see there is four pages here. At the bottom of this page is says 4 and at the bottom of this page it says 3.
Now let's make it look a little nicer by selecting it and then centering the text right there. Now you can see that it does that to each Footer right there. 
Let's continue to customize. Let's say we want to show the total number of pages. So we can say "of" and then we will Insert Page Count. So there we go. Now it says 3 of 4, 2 of 4, etc. So if I were to actually paste more text here we can see now it has updated it automatically as 7 of 8 and 8 of 8.
Now suppose we wanted to put this at the top of the page instead. We can certainly do that by inserting the same thing here, Page Number, "of", Page Count like that and maybe right justify it. 
Now suppose I have facing pages. Let's make some adjustments. Let's bring up the Inspector here and under Documents  do Facing Pages. So this would be like if you have pages in a book and you are doing two sided paper. Let's actually make it easier to see here by reducing the size down to 75% there. Now we can see page 1 on the front, and you have 2 and 3 face each other, and 4 and 5 face each other. What would be nice is if we have the page numbers appear on the outside always instead of always right justified like something you would more typically see in a book.
You could do that by going to the Inspector here. We have Facing Pages turned on here already. We can go into the Layout area to Section and you can say Left and right pages are different. What this will do is that it will redefine the Headers here so the Headers for the right side pages are still there as we had before but now we have to recreate the Header for the left side. 
So Insert Page Number of Page Count and we can see here we have a different Header, left justified, on that side and a right justified Header on that side here.
Also, because we had created the Footers before we will either have to delete these, which is what we probably want to do in this case, or recreate it over here so that they match. 
So that is how to add page numbers and page counts to the Headers and Footers of your word processing documents in Pages.
I hope you found this useful. This is Gary with MacMost Now.

Comments: 9 Responses to “MacMost Now 733: Adding Page Numbers in Pages”

Dennis

12 years ago

Great video tutorial, Gary! I'm an iTunes subscriber and have purchased a couple of your books; I enjoy them all!

Is there a way to show page numbers on all pages EXCEPT the first page? So, for instance, the footer in the first page would be blank but numbering would begin with "2" or "2 of..." in the footer on page 2.

Gary Rosenzweig

Yep. Just create sections. The first page is its own section. Then the rest of the book is the second section. Have that section start numbering with page 2 and have the footer show the page number in that section, but not the first one.

Harold

Is there a way, short of adding spaces, to have three items in the header or footer? For example, I prefer my footer to have: my name (left justified), Page x of y (centered) and the date (right justified). Currently I add my name and date, then return to the end of my name and space to the center to add the page indicators (tab doesn't do it).

You can do this -- and tabs are the way. But you have to add the tab stops to the ruler while your cursor is in the header or footer. See http://macmost.com/word-processor-tab-stops.html

Gary,
Thanks for the quick response, and the link to the tutorial. I've already viewed some of the iMovie and Keynote tutorials and they've really added some insight for new approaches to my workflow.

Tori Smit

I am writing a document (official minutes) in Pages that must start at page number 2018 and continue up from there. Is there a way to get the page numbering to start not with one, but with a much higher page number and progress from there?

Yes. It is right there in the Inspector -- you can set the page number to start each section.

Christopher H. Gouw

Hi Gary, I am in the process of compiling a teaching syllabus. Was wondering if it be possible to number the pages differently, such as: front page (no numbering); followed by foreword & table of contents (numbering format i, ii, iii, iv) and lastly the main body of the syllabus (the classical numbering format: 1, 2, 3 .. etc). What would be the right procedure to follow ? Thanks ..

You are describing sections. Just create new sections and use the Inspector to start page numbering as you like in each section. Then create each header/footer as you like.

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MacMost Now 733: Adding Page Numbers in Pages

Comments: 9 Responses to “MacMost Now 733: Adding Page Numbers in Pages”

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