Page Numbers

Page numbers should appear 0.75" from the bottom of the page, on each page of the disquisition, except for the Title page and the Disquisition Approval page. These two pages should not contain page numbers.

Formatting Requirements

  • Appearance – In the prefatory material (such as the Abstract, Table of Contents, List of Tables, etc.), page numbers must use lower-case Roman numerals (such as iii, iv, v, etc.). In the body of the disquisition (including Chapters, Tables, References, Appendices, etc.), page numbers must use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). In the prefatory material, the page numbering should begin at iii on the page containing the Abstract, as the Title page and Approval page are still counted even though they do not contain page numbers. In the main document, the first page of the first chapter must be identified as page 1.
  • Font – Page numbers must use the same type and size of font as the text in the body paragraphs.
  • Location – Page numbers must be center-aligned in the bottom margin of the page, at three-quarter inches (0.75”) from the bottom edge of the page, and they should not intrude into the text of the body of the disquisition. Likewise, content of the disquisition (such as paragraph text) should not obscure the page numbers.

If you have a table or a figure that uses landscape page orientation, then page numbers must still appear in portrait orientation. In other words, the page number should appear in the same location as a portrait-aligned page number when the page is printed. This ensures that if your disquisition is printed, all of the page numbers appear consistently throughout the document. For help formatting landscaped pages, see our help page.

Quick Answers

Page numbers on landscaped pages must appear in the same position as the portrait pages, which means the page numbers on landscape pages should be on the relative left-hand. See our help page on landscape pages for instructions.

Issue: Page Numbers Are Too Far from Bottom of Page

  • Page numbers should be centered in the footer 0.75" from the bottom of the page.

There are several common causes for this issue.

  1. The "footer from bottom" is set incorrectly; should be set to 0.75". This setting can be accessed from the Header & Footer tab, which is available after double-clicking any header or footer or navigating to Insert tab -> Header or Footer in the Header & Footer group -> Edit Header or Footer. If you document contains section breaks, this setting will need to be applied to all sections individually.
  2. The page margins are set incorrectly. All page margins should be set to 1". This setting can be accessed from the Layout tab -> Page Setup group -> Margins.
  3. The page numbers are double-spaced, or there are line breaks or carriage returns above or below them in the footer. Line spacing can be changed in the paragraph settings. Line breaks and carriage returns should be removed. You can view formatting marks by clicking the pilcrow icon (¶) in the Paragraph group on the Home tab, or using the hotkey CTRL+SHIFT+8.

On landscaped pages, you will need to manually adjust the position of the page number. Generally, you can snap the page number into the correct position by dragging it until both the vertical and horizontal snap lines appear. For more information, see steps 15 and 16 on our help page for landscape pages.

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