Word 2010: problem with page numbers not increasing when moving to the next page

Hi everybody,

I hope someone can help me with my problem?

I am using Word 2010 and page numbers don't get updated at all in my one specific document (which is about 30 pages long).

All the pages are showing page number 2 or 3 and my Table of Contents show also that all the information is on pages 2 or 3.

I have a lot of section breaks in the document. In page 3 header is -Section 3- and on page 4 header is -Section 11-. Could this somehow cause the problem?

I've tried to fix the problem by deleting all the headings. And I have removed all the "link to previous" links.

Then I inserted them again and tried to to add page numbers both from quick parts (Quick Part > Field > Page) and from Insert > Page number > Top of Page etc.

It does not help.

I've tried to reboot my laptop and that does not help either.

Any suqqestions what to do next?

This thread is locked. You can vote as helpful, but you cannot reply or subscribe to this thread.

Answer

Stefan Blom

Page numbering options, including restarts, are stored at the section level. Also, when a section break is added, the settings will be inherited by the new section. This explains the frequent page number restarts that you are seeing. If you are really sure that you don't need the sections, you can delete the breaks.

However, a quick fix is to run the following macro on the affected document:

Sub SetContinuousPageNumbering()
Dim s As Section
For Each s In ActiveDocument.Sections
s.Headers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).PageNumbers _
.RestartNumberingAtSection = False
Next s
End Sub

For assistance, see http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm.

Stefan Blom
MS 365 Word MVP since 2005
Volunteer Moderator
MS 365, Win 11 Pro
~~~
Note that I do not work for Microsoft
https://mvp.microsoft.com/
~~~
Please specify Word version & OS in your question

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Answer

MikeK703

A lot of section breaks sometimes messes up the numbers. View the document in the "Draft" mode and see if there are "Continuous section breaks" between pages 3 and 4. If they are not necessary (e.g., there are no columns in the text) delete them and try fixing your page numbers then.

Word Top Contributors:

Word 2010: problem with page numbers not increasing when moving to the next page

Replies (6)

Question Info

Word 2010: problem with page numbers not increasing when moving to the next page

Replies (6) 

Question Info

Replies (6)