Designing Documents with a Word Processor

This tutorial presents a brief overview of how to achieve interesting, effective designs for your pages using the basic features of your word processor. Specifically, it introduces you to important design principles to consider as you design a document and helps you analyze the design of sample documents. Although the design principles presented here apply to both print and online documents, the primary focus is on design strategies for paper documents.

Munger, Roger H. Bedford-St. Martin's (2007). Articles>Document Design>Word Processing

How to Control the Page Numbering in a Word Document

Word's page numbering scheme isn't directly obvious but it isn't needlessly complex, either. Indirect might be a good term for it. Once you understand how it works, all sorts of possibilities open up. Unfortunately, the built-in tools that simplify the insertion of page numbers also happen to make it more difficult to tell what's really going on. So, for the moment, forget everything you've learned or think you know about page numbers.

Coan, Bill. Word MVP Site, The (2005). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word

How to Set Up a Document with Front Matter Numbered Separately

Publishers call the preliminary pages in a book the 'front matter.' They aren’t always numbered separately—some books start with the title page as page 1 and are paginated continuously throughout—but when there is a significant amount of front matter, it’s conventional to number it using lowercase roman numerals.

Barnhill, Suzanne. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word

I Want to Include the Chapter Number with the Page Number in the Header

If you insist on doing this – and if you do, don't say I didn't warn you! – then the best procedure is as follows.

McGhie, John. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word

Why Do All the Page Numbers in my Word 2002 Document Display as 0?

Word 2002 will display 0 for all page numbers in headers or footers, and all page numbers in a Table of Contents, in the following circumstances.

Kelly, Shauna. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word

Why Does the Appearance (or Layout) of My Document Change When I Open it on a Different Machine?

Because Word is a WYSIWYG application, it will always try to represent on screen the result you will get if you print on the printer that is selected as the default. Changing printer drivers will almost always change the layout at least slightly and sometimes radically. There are a number of ways to minimize the changes.

Barnhill, Suzanne. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word