In today’s blog post, we will see how to start a page number from a specific page, like the Chapter 1 or any Front Matter section like the Foreword section.
Thus, by simply following the steps given in this article, you can make Page numbers for your paperback books look professional.
Pagination for PaperBacks
The secret to adding page numbers starting at first page for your first chapter is in using ‘Section breaks’. You might have used page breaks to separate different portions of your front pages and all the different chapters.
However, if you want to see different stylings for your page numbers, then go for Section breaks instead of Page breaks.
To organize what we learn, I have divided this instruction into three different categories:
- Creating sections
- Adding & formatting page numbers
- Deleting page numbers
Watch this on YouTube
If you don’t have time to read this blog post, simply watch this on YouTube here:
Creating sections
First and foremost, for the page numbers to be customized the way you want it to be, you need to create ‘Section breaks’ between different sections of your book – like the pages within the usual Front matter (copyrights, foreword, introduction, dedications), Chapters 1, 2, 3, and so on.
Page breaks won’t be helpful when it comes to creating page numbers in our footers. To create a ‘Section break’, just go to the Layout tab, click on Breaks and choose ‘Next Page‘ under the Section Breaks.
Create a ‘section break’ in between all your different sections and move to the next step.
Adding & formatting page numbers
First double-click on your footer section of the page where you want to add the page number.
Once you double-click, the Header & Footer tools tab gets activated with its Design tab shown.
Now, click on ‘Page Number‘ and select ‘Bottom of Page‘ (you can choose whichever position you prefer here) and add page number.
Formatting page numbers
Then, click again on the ‘Page Number‘ and select ‘Format Page Numbers…‘ and choose a Number format from the first drop-down option given. If you’d wanted to select ‘Roman Numerals‘ for your Front Matter section, this is the time to choose them !!
Additionally, if you want to customize the ‘starting’ page number for your chapter, you can change the number to start at a different number from the ‘Start at:‘ counter.
Deleting page numbers from the first page of a new chapter
Professional editors choose not to show page numbers on the first page of a new chapter. You can also do that by simply selecting this checkbox which says ‘Different First Page‘.
This is how you add a different starting page number for your first chapter.
Here’s a question for you: what’s the real challenge in self-publishing your first book, in case you haven’t created any yet?
Let me know in the comments below and I will see if I can help you in any way through a video or a blog post or just directly answering your questions.