WORD Make your page numbers stand out

It’s easy to add page numbers to your document’s headers or footers. But if you want them to really stand out you could place them into different shaped boxes.

First, click the Insert tab, click the Header or Footer dropdown menu in the ‘Header & Footer’ section and choose a style.

Next, delete the page number that appears in the footer because you first need to create the box. To do that, click the Insert tab, then the Shapes dropdown menu in the Illustrations section and choose the shape you want. Now click and drag your shape to the footer area to add it there. You can customise your shape using the options in the Shape Styles section at the top.

To add page numbers inside your shape, right-click the shape, then click Add Text. Next, click the Design tab at the top right, then click the Page Numbers dropdown menu on the left. Now move your cursor to Current Position and select Plain Number (see screenshot below left). You can format your page numbers by highlighting one, clicking the Home tab, then selecting a different font or colour from the Font section at the top left.

Here, click the Special button on the left, select Blanks, then click OK (see screenshot below left). This will select all the blank cells in your highlighted row. To delete these cells (and thereby move the cells below it up to fill the gaps), click the Delete dropdown menu on the right of the Home tab and select Delete Cells. In the Delete window that opens, select ‘Shift cells up’, then click OK.