Page Numbers are Zeros

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 24, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Dave has a customer to whom he sends documents periodically. When they leave Dave's desk, the pages are all numbered properly. When his customer opens the documents, the page numbers, located in the footer of each page, are all zeros. Dave wonders why this occurs and if there is a way to fix it.

There are a couple of reasons this could be happening. The simplest explanation is that the fields that Word uses for your page numbers are not automatically updated on the target system. The easiest way to see if this is the issue is to open the header or footer, select the page number, and press F9. You can also choose Tools | Options | Print tab (See Figure 1.) and make sure the Update Fields check box is selected. Print the document and the page numbers should be updated.

Figure 1. The Print tab of the Options dialog box.

If neither of these techniques changes the page numbers from zero, it could be because of a strange little bug in Word 2000. This occurs if there is a combination of tables and floating graphics in your header or footer. You can find more information on this esoteric mix of conditions and how it can affect your document by visiting this Web page at the Word MVP site:

http://wordmvp.com/FAQs/Numbering/PageNumber0.htm

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (320) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Showing Only Added Text with Track Changes

Do you want to change how Track Changes displays the markup in your document? Here's how you can completely hide deleted ...

Discover More

Continuous Formatting for Footnotes

If you've got a lot of short footnotes in a document, you might be looking for a way to save space by "crunching up" the ...

Discover More

Inserting Special Spaces

Do you need to frequently add en spaces and em spaces to your documents? You can add special tools to Word that make ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Automatic Page Numbers across Multiple Documents

Word allows you to specify the starting page number for a document, which comes in handy if you have multiple documents ...

Discover More

Adding Page Numbers in Headers or Footers

While Word has a default format for page numbers, you can design and specify how you want them to appear in your ...

Discover More

Turning Off Default First Page Numbering

Ever want to change the default settings for how Word handles page numbering? Word doesn't make this as easy as you would ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is one less than 1?

2022-05-22 22:14:49

Joel

Thank you thank you! :) This is still useful!

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.