Can I number columns in Word?

QI use Microsoft Word to create an A5 address book, using the program’s table feature to create a neat address book laid out across two columns. I chop the sheets in half and staple up an A5 booklet. It’s perfect but for one little annoyance. I have to number the pages starting with ‘1a’ at the bottom of the left-hand column and ‘1b’ at the bottom of the right-hand column. Is there a way of numbering the pages so the first column has ‘1’ and the second has ‘2’, continuing sequentially to the end?

AWe’re not sure if you’ve been typing these ‘page’ numbers in manually, or have used Word’s built-in page-numbering feature before appending letters to the automatically generated numbers.

It doesn’t much matter because, as you’re using tables, there is another method you can use — and that’s to create numbered lists. That might sound strange but as Word will happily count table cells as elements to be numbered, it’ll work for your purposes. To start, click where you want the first number. Now select, in the Paragraph category of the Home tab, the Numbering icon (it’s the one with a little numbered list – see screenshot). Then click in the second cell, and click Numbering again to add the next number in the sequence .

When you’ve got the idea, you can left-click and drag to select several cells before clicking the Numbering icon to apply sequential numbers to all.