Google Docs is one of the prime word processors available in the market and most users have switched to it in recent days. This can be attributed to the multitude of features available on the platform, ease of access, and the quick and straightforward interface.

Google Docs has most of the features available on any word processor, adding page numbers is one of them. Adding a page number to a document ensures clarity and also keeps readers engaged since they are aware of which page they are on. A user can easily add page numbers to a document within a couple of clicks.

Adding Page Numbers in Google Docs

To add page numbers, click on ‘Insert’ at the top.

Next, select ‘Page Numbers’ from the drop-down menu and then select one of the four options to add page numbers. Moreover, you can click on ‘More options’ to customize the feature.

After you click on ‘More options’, the ‘Page numbers’ dialog box will open. Under the ‘Position’ section, select if you want the page numbers to appear at the top or the bottom. If you select ‘Header’ the page number appears on the top while it appears at the bottom in the case of ‘Footer’.

Next, you have the option to mention the page number on the first page of the document. If the first page is the title page, you would want to start numbering it from the second page onwards, therefore, untick the checkbox.

Select the number that you want to start with when mentioning page numbers under ‘Numbering’. Once you are done customizing, click on ‘Apply’ at the bottom.

With the options selected in the above example, the page number starts with the first page and mentioned at the top.

Changing Alignment

Google Docs adds page numbers to the top-right of the document by default, which can be edited easily and the page number moved across the page. To change the position of the page number, highlight it, and then click on ‘Align’ from the toolbar at the top. Next, select an alignment from the four options. The current alignment page number alignment is highlighted in blue.

In the above case, we selected the left alignment, thus the page number has moved to the top-left corner of the page. You can also move it to the bottom by selecting the ‘Footer’ option instead of ‘Header’ and then changing the alignment accordingly.

Removing Page Number

To remove a page number from the document, highlight it and click on ‘Options’ just under it. Next, click on ‘Remove headers’ in the drop-down menu as is the case here. In case, you have added page number at the bottom, the option would change to ‘Remove footer’.

You can similarly add page numbers to multiple documents using this feature and save a lot of time. In the absence of the ‘Page number’ feature, you would have to manually enter them, which is a tedious and cumbersome task.