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Microsoft Word provides users with comprehensive solutions for document composition, and although numbering lines in Word differs from numbering in Excel, utilizing the available tools allows for quick text input. Automatic numbering allows you to format and organize text with numbers, bullets, or a border, making your documents creative and professional, enhancing readability and understanding of the core content. Through the following article, Mytour will introduce and guide you on how to insert line numbers at the beginning of each line in Word quickly.
How to Insert Line Numbers at the Beginning of Each Line in Word
Method 1: Applying with Office 2003
Step 1: From the Word editing interface, click on the Format menu and select Bullets and Numbering...
Step 2: The Bullets and Numbering dialog box appears, where you can clearly see the details of the tabs in this dialog box as follows:
Bulleted Tab: The first character of the line is special characters
If you use this tab, when clicking on the Customize button... you can adjust the formatting of the first line character through the new Customize Bulleted List dialog box
Character Button...: Select a new character as the first line character
Picture Button...: Select a picture as the first line character
Indent at: Adjust the distance of the first line character from the margin.
Text position: The starting position for displaying text characters.
Tab space after: The distance between the first line character of the paragraph and the margin, without exceeding the automatic set character.
Indent at: The distance between lines that are not the first line of the paragraph and the margin, allowing this distance to exceed the automatic set character beyond the margin.
Select OK to confirm the changes, Cancel to discard and return to the Bulleted tab.
Numbered Tab: The first line character is numbers:
If you use this tab, when clicking on the Customize button... you can adjust the formatting of the first line character through the new
Number format: Click the Font... button to choose a font format for the first line number.
Number Style: The style of numbering (1, 2, 3, or a, b, c, or I, II, III,...)
Start at: The number to start from (default is 1)
Number position: The alignment format is left, center, right.
Text position: The starting position for displaying text characters.
Tab space after: The distance between the first line character of the paragraph and the margin, without exceeding the automatic set character.
Indent at: The distance between lines that are not the first line of the paragraph and the margin, allowing this distance to exceed the automatic set character beyond the margin.
Select OK to confirm the changes, Cancel to discard and return to the Numbered tab.
Outline Numbered Tab: The first line characters of paragraphs will be formatted in a hierarchical manner:
If you use this tab, when clicking on the Customize button... you can adjust the formatting of the first line character through the new Customize Outline Numbered List dialog box:
Level: The level of automatic sequence display
Number format: The format of the sequence number
Number style: Select the style of sequence number (1, 2, 3...; a, b, c...; I, II, III,...)
Start at: Start numbering automatically.
Previous level number: The level number displayed before the automatic sequence number. This level is always one level lower than the Level.
Font...: Format the font for the automatic sequence number.
Number position: The alignment format is left, center, right with the distance from the margin as Aligned at.
Text position: The starting position for displaying text characters.
Tab space after: The distance between the first line character of the paragraph and the margin, without exceeding the automatic set character.
Indent at: The distance between lines that are not the first line of the paragraph and the margin, allowing this distance to exceed the automatic set character beyond the margin.
Select OK to confirm the changes, Cancel to discard and return to the Numbered tab.
List Styles Tab: Create additional styles for customizing first line characters:
If you use this tab, when clicking on the Add button... you can create additional styles for automatic numbering through the new New Style dialog box.
Modify... you can modify the formatting style through the new Modify Style dialog box.
Delete... you can delete existing automatic numbering styles. Press Yes to confirm or No to cancel the deletion command.
Finally, after completing the setup for automatic line numbering in Word, simply click the OK button in the Bullets and Numbering dialog box.
Method 2: Applicable for both Office 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016
With this method, simply select the entire text that needs automatic line numbering and click on the automatic numbering icon on the Formatting toolbar as shown in the image below.
Or choose the automatic line numbering icon
Furthermore, with newer Office versions, readers only need to click on the arrow icon next to it to add more numbering formats and characters.
By default, after you install Office, Word will be set to automatically use line numbering and characters at the beginning of each line. This means that when there is a character or number at the beginning of a line (-, *, 1, I, b,...) and you press Enter to go to the next line, Word will automatically switch to filling in line numbers or characters at the beginning of the line. This can be cumbersome and time-consuming to edit your document, so to turn off automatic line numbering and characters at the beginning of each line, you can follow these steps:
Step 1: From the Word interface, click on the Tools menu and select AutoCorrect Options...
Step 2: The AutoCorrect dialog box appears, select the AutoFormat tab, uncheck the boxes for Automatic bulleted lists and Other paragraph styles as shown in the image below.
Step 3: Next, switch to the AutoFormat As You Type tab, uncheck the boxes for Automatic bulleted lists and Automatic numbered lists then click OK to finish.
Thus, here is the complete guide and sharing with readers on how to insert line numbers in Word. Hopefully, readers can apply this method to their documents to enhance professionalism in document editing. Additionally, if readers are in the process of writing a thesis or project with precise requirements for characters, lines, and pages, the guide on how to count characters in Word shared previously might be a suitable solution at this time.
