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General discussion

Cannot delete page numbering from footer in Word 2003

May 7, 2008 7:29AM PDT

I've tried just about everything and am about to rip my hair out. Am working with a Word 2003 document, I copied and pasted a few pages from another Word document which contained a footer that identified my organization and the page number. I was able to delete (from the footer) the text, but Word won't let me delete the page number. To make matters worse, the page number is appearing on all of my pages! I've tried deleting the offending data from the footer on many different pages, no luck. Help!

Discussion is locked

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Re: deleting a field.
May 7, 2008 7:37AM PDT

It should be easy, and it's not clear from your description why it doesn't work. Of course, the text is plain text, and the page number is a field, so the details are different, but still it should be easy.

Can you insert a page number in another (new) document and delete it again? That shows (a) that it can be done in principle, and (b) how to do it.

The work-around would be to set the font of the page footing style to color white. It's printed then, but you don't see it.

Kees

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Cannot delete page numbering from footer
May 7, 2008 7:40AM PDT

The page number isn't plain text. Word is automatically numbering the pages within the footer, so even though the page number "appears" as plain text when I open the footer, there must be some sort of "formula" working behind the scenes.

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That's exactly what I said.
May 7, 2008 8:20AM PDT

It isn't plain text, it's a field. To insert it: Insert>Field from the menu. To delete it: select the field and press del. Like any other field (a table of contents, the current date, and some 100+ other).
Try it on a new document.

Kees

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response to Kees Bakker
Dec 10, 2010 6:45PM PST

Kees, you need to actually use word 2003 before you offer advise from a topic you know nothing about. There is no way to delete the page numbers from the footer in word 2003. they are there and you are stuck with them. you have offered a way to do this like it's so easy. well smarty pants, why don't you provide a step by step guide to remove the page numbers from the footer. instead of your colorful theories. Offering advice when you don't have any idea what you are talking about does nothing but waste peoples time as they attempt to work with your advice.

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I tried it in Office 2003 (Word)
Dec 11, 2010 9:57PM PST

And Kees advice worked.

I bet some like you have an issue with Word but here Kees was right.

Bob (still has Office 2003!)

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Re: Word
Dec 11, 2010 10:15PM PST

Actually, I have Word 2003. And actually, I delete a pagenumber field by selecting it with the mouse and pressing the delete key. Couldn't be easier. I just did it again in a demo document. It's the same method I've always used from Word 6 onward.

Not clear why it doesn't work with you. Maybe something is wrong with your document, your normal.dot, your registry, your profile, your Word or your Windows. Try again on another document on another PC.

Kees

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Solution
Jul 4, 2014 1:58PM PDT

I also have and like Word 2003 and have no plans to change. But some of the GUI choices are very weird. I also could find no way to delete page numbers from a header or footer after they had been inserted from the INSERT / Page Numbers menu.

The secret is to bring up the header and footer view from the VIEW / Headers and Footers menu. Then, click on the number field (it will then be surrounded by a square, and then carefully make sure that you highlight the number within the field. Press the Del or Delete key. If you did not highlight the number itself, it won't work. it's a two stage process. First, click on the field to highlight it. THEN, highlight and delete the contents (on any page).

There is no other way I know of to do this and I could not find the documentation for it in HELP.

Deleting the contents of the field in the header or footer for *any* page deletes it for the whole document.

Hope that helps. And the question is far from silly. It's just another example of how weird Microsoft methods are for accomplishing common tasks. Those methods are often extremely and unnecessarily obfuscated as if nobody with a two digit IQ had ever tested the silly program.

But I still prefer 2003 to the bloated new versions and don't get me started on the idiocy of paying for Word with an annual subscription to the cloud version. Cheech!