How to Add Page Numbers in Excel? 2 Easy with Options
(Note: This guide on how to add page numbers in Excel is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365)
Imagine you are holding a piece of document for the first time and someone who’s familiar with it asks you to refer to a piece of content in the document. At first, you’d be baffled about where to search, right?
And if they ask you to turn to a certain page number, it would be easy to find the content.
Page numbers are used to identify and refer to a particular content with much ease. We have already seen how to add page numbers to a Word document, but how would you add page numbers in Excel?
In this article, I will tell you how to add page numbers in Excel and how to customize them with the options available.
You’ll Learn:
- Why Add Page Numbers in Excel?
- How to Add Page Numbers in Excel and Customize Them?
- How to Remove Page Numbers in Excel?
Watch our video on how to add page numbers in Excel
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How to Insert a Page Break in Excel? (3 Simple Steps)
How to Convert Text to Numbers in Excel? 5 Easy Methods
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Why Add Page Numbers in Excel?
Before we see how to add page numbers in Excel, let us first understand what page numbers mean in Excel.
Page numbers are a crucial part of a professional document. A document with page numbers provides an easy citation for the user to refer to a certain page and helps keep the pages in order.
When it comes to a spreadsheet, Excel consists of multiple sheets and a vast number of cells. Usually, to point or refer to a particular value, we use cell numbers. But when printing them, we cannot use cell numbers to refer to values. Thereby, adding page numbers to your Excel worksheet makes it more organized and effective to refer to.
In Microsoft Word, page numbers are placed in the header or footer of each page and they can either be numbered in Roman numerals or western numbers. In the same way, we can add page numbers in Excel. Let us see how.
How to Add Page Numbers in Excel and Customize Them?
Add Page Number Using the Header and Footer Option
In the normal mode, Excel appears as a whole sheet with the scroll button consisting of cells without any page break or space to add page numbers.
When the layout is changed to Page Layout, you can see the Excel sheet in a different format.
To add page numbers in Excel sheets, navigate to the View main menu. Select the Page Layout option. Once you click this option, the Excel sheet is split up into pages both horizontally and vertically.
Note: Another way to change the layout of the sheet is by using the shortcut buttons near the zoom bar towards the bottom right of Excel.
You can either add page numbers in the header or footer. In this case, let us add page numbers in the footer.
Scroll down and click on Add Footer. This shows you three partitions in the footer to add page numbers. You can either add the page numbers on the left side of the page, to the right of the page, or in the center of the page.
Once you click on the footer, you can see the Header & Footer option in the main menu. Under the Header & Footer Elements section, click on the Page Number.
Once you click on page number, you can see the text “&[Page]” in the footer section.
Now, click anywhere in Excel and you can see the numbers populating in the selected partition of the header or the footer.
Note: Changing the layout of a sheet in Excel only pertains to that particular sheet and it doesn’t adhere to other sheets or workbooks.
Additional Options
Add Total Number of Pages With the Page Number
When you want to add the total number of pages along with the current page number, first click on Page Number in the Header & Footer section. Now, manually add “of”. Then click on Number of Pages in the same Header & Footer section. This adds the current page and the total number of pages onto the footer.
For your reference in Excel, you can see the current page you’re in and the total number of pages towards the left bottom of Excel near the accessibility status.
Note: You can only see the page numbers in the Page Layout mode and when printing. You cannot see the page numbers in Excel in normal mode.
Add Different Content in One Page
There might be some instances where you have to add a different content and page number that might only pertain to the first page. In such cases, you can manually add a different page number or different content. Let us see how.
First, change the layout of the Excel sheet to Page Layout from the View main menu. Then, click on the header or footer of any page. Now, navigate to the Header & Footer and check the checkbox for Different First Page.
Now, enter the number you want to add in the place of a footer and the number will be added as a page number. Additionally, you can add any text in the footer and they will only pertain to that certain page.
Note: When this option is checked, anything you add on the page will only pertain to that page and not other pages.
Make Changes for Odd or Even Page Numbers
When you check the Different Odd & Even Pages option, any change you make to the header and footer will only pertain to odd or even pages. This option will be more helpful when you print the sheets on the same page.
Also Read:
How to Find and Replace in Excel? A Step-by-Step Guide
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Add Page Number Using Page Setup
This is another way to add page numbers in Excel. In addition to adding page numbers, this method has a variety of options and functionalities to customize them. Let us first see how to add page numbers.
Navigate to the View main menu and change the view to Page Layout.
Now, go to the Page Layout main menu and click on the Page Setup Options which can be seen as a small extend option.
This opens the Page Setup dialog box. Navigate to the Header/Footer tab. If you want to add the page numbers as the header, click on the dropdown from Header. In the same way, you can click on the dropdown from Footer to add the page number in the footer. Select the way you want to add the page number from the suggestions. Click OK.
This inserts the page number in the Excel sheet.
You can check the checkboxes in the Page Setup dialog box under the Header/Footer tab to start numbering with different first page or make changes to alternate pages.
Additional Options
Start Numbering Page From a Different Number
If you want to start numbering the pages from a different number other than 1, navigate to the Page tab in the Page Setup dialog box. In the First page number: text box, change the Auto option to the number you want to start with. Click OK.
This adds a different number to the starting page and every page will be numbered accordingly.
Change the Order of Numbering
You would have noticed that the pages are numbered first vertically and then horizontally by default. Using the Page Setup option, you can change the order the pages are numbered.
In the same Page Setup dialog box, navigate to the Sheet tab. In the Page Order section, select Down, then over to number vertically and then horizontally, or select Over, then down to number the pages horizontally and then vertically.
How to Remove Page Numbers in Excel?
Though page numbers are a valuable addition to your worksheet, sometimes you might not need a page number.
To delete a page number, click on the Page Number in the header or footer section. This highlights the page number. Delete them and click away.
This deletes the page numbers in the selected page and the following pages.
Suggested Reads:
How to Merge Cells in Excel? 3 Easy Ways
How to Create a Venn Diagram in Excel? 2 Easy Ways
How to Convert Formulas to Values in Excel? 6 Easy Methods
Frequently Asked Questions
How to add page numbers for the entire worksheet?
You can add page numbers either by changing the Page Layout and selecting Page Number in the Header & Footer main menu. You can also do this by using the Page Setup dialog box and choosing page numbers from the Header/Footer dropdown. These changes apply to the whole worksheet and not just the single page.
When we add page numbers, do they apply to the whole workbook?
No. When you add page numbers or make any customization to the layout or formatting, the changes only pertain to the worksheet. If you want to apply the changes to the whole document, you have to manually add the page numbers in each worksheet separately.
How to know the page breaks in Excel?
First, click on the Page Layout and change the layout of the page. Once you return to the Normal view, you can see a fine dotted line that separates the page. You can use that as a cue when you add data and know how to separate them accordingly.
Closing Thoughts
Page numbers help in facilitating the reader to find the particular content in the document and know the size of the complete text.
In this article, we saw how to add page numbers in Excel using two different methods and the additional options that come with it.
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Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel and other business software for over ten years. For a low, monthly fee you can get access to 140+ IT training courses.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!
