How to skip page numbers for some pages in the Word document

Word 2016
Some Microsoft Word documents may contain pages with images, tables, etc. for which you need to hide or even skip page numbers. You can create different sections and add page numbering just for some of them (see How to create different headers and footers for pages with portrait and landscape orientation), but Word can't skip any page for numbering.

For example, if you need to hide the page number of page 7 :

Page number to hide in Word 365

To skip page numbers for some pages, you need to add formulas instead of standard page numbers:

{ IF “Expression1” Operator “Expression2” “Text if formula is TRUE” “Text if formula is FALSE” }

For this example, to simplify a logic, create 2 different formulas for pages before 7 and after 7 :

   1.   First formula – for pages before 7 :

   1.1.   Click Ctrl+F9 to add the special brackets:

The special brackets for fields in Word 365

   1.2.   Enter IF and then again click Ctrl+9 to add PAGE  field to get the current page number:

The formula 1 in field 1 in Word 365

   1.3.   Enter < (less than) and then number of the page in quotes that you want to skip, in this example, "7" :

The formula 1 in field 2 in Word 365

   1.4.   Add the text that you want to see for pages before 7 in quotes:

The formula 1 in field 3 in Word 365

   2.   Second formula – for pages after 7 :

   2.1.   Click Ctrl+F9 to add the special brackets.

   2.2.   Enter IF and then again click Ctrl+9 to add PAGE field to calculate the current page number.

   2.3.   Enter > (greater than) and then number of the page in quotes that you want to skip, in this example, "7" :

The formula 2 in field 1 in Word 365

   2.4.   In quotes:

  • Add the text that you want to see for pages before 7.
  • Instead of the current page number, you need to calculate the page number, excluding skipped pages. For this example:
The formula 2 in field 2 in Word 365

   3.   Format text in quotes if necessary, for example:

The formulas in Word 365

   4.   To show the result of your formulas, do one of the following:

  • Select formulas and click Alt+F9,
  • Right-click on each field and choose Toggle Field Codes:
Toggle Field Codes in Word 365

So, you will see numbers of pages, skipping the page number 7 :

Page before number 7 in Word 365
Page after number 7 in Word 365

See also:

See also this tip in French: Comment ignorer les numéros de page pour certaines pages du document Word.

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