MS Word - Start Page Numbers on p3

Whether you're writing an Extended Essay, a Master's Dissertation, or a Doctoral Thesis, knowing how to have page numbers that don't appear until page 3 (or any other page for that matter) is not as obvious as it should be...

To change a document part way through in any way, you need to use a Section Break, this is useful for changing page numbers, but you can use it for all sorts of formatting changes, margin change, orientation, even page size.

Here's how you use a section break to change where page numbers appear:

1. Go to page you want the numbering to start, like p3 in your document, and insert a Section Break (Next Page):

2. Now double click in the footer area at the bottom of the page, to edit the footer. The 'ribbon' will change to show the footer settings, you need to unlink the footer in the previous section from this section.

3. Click the toggle option where it says 'Link to Previous' to unlink it.

Now it should appear unselected, which shows the previous section is not linked to this one.

4. Now you can insert page numbering, just accept the default settings as below, and SHAZAM you're page numbers only appear on this page forwards.

Google Docs

This is not an option in Google Docs (yet) but you can choose to have page numbering ignore the cover page and start on the 2nd page instead. When inserting page numbers, choose one of the options on the right side of the page number options...

Insert > Header & page number > Page number >