The guidance about page number placement in the Student Supplement for the SBL Handbook of Style is clear enough. How to achieve this placement in Word is anything but.
As easy as some things have gotten in Word over the years, this process still isn’t at all intuitive.
Fortunately, it’s also not too difficult once you know how to tell Word how you want your page numbers formatted.
1. Introduction
The trick is to sequence the steps in the proper order. That way, you can eliminate the back and forth trial and error that can make setting up proper page numbers so frustrating.
The process is slightly different for “short” essays (14 pages or less) than it is for “long” essays (15 pages or more; Student Supplement, §2.7).
Here, we’ll assume you’re working on a short essay. And to format a new short essay document to use page numbers properly, you just need to follow a few simple steps.
2. A Word on Word
Before I get to those, though, I should note that I’m also assuming you’re using the most current, fully supported version of Word available via Office 365.1
If you have a different version of Word, you may find some differences also in the precise steps required to format your page numbers.
But any reasonably recent version should allow you to follow along with this process pretty easily.
3. The Steps
3.1. Create your essay’s title page.
3.1.1. Type your title page. If you need a refresher on what the Student Supplement recommends for a title page, you can refer to sample 3.1 on p. 14.2
3.1.2. With your cursor at the end of the last line of your title page, go to Layout > Breaks > Section Break > Next Page.
3.2. Create your essay’s body.
3.2.1. Double click in the header (or top margin) of page 2. Check Different First Page. Uncheck Link to Previous.
3.2.2. Click in the footer of page 2. Uncheck Link to Previous.
3.2.3. Insert a page number by going to Page Number > Bottom of Page > Plain Number 2, which should show a preview of a page number in the bottom center of the page.
3.2.4. After you add the page number, highlight and right click it. Then, choose Format Page Numbers.
3.2.5. Under Page Numbering, choose to Start at 1 rather than to continue from the previous section. Click OK.
3.2.6. Double click back into the main text area of the page numbered 1 (the second page in the total document). Start typing your paper until you have enough text to roll over onto the start of what will be page 2 (the third page in the total document).
3.2.7. Double click into the header of this third page in the total document. Insert a page number by going to Page Number > Top of Page > Plain Number 3, which should show a preview of a page number in the top right of the page.
3.2.8. Double click back into the main text area of the page numbered 2 (the third in the total document). Continue typing the rest of your paper until you get ready to add your bibliography.
3.3. Create your essay’s bibliography.
3.3.1. With your cursor at the end of the last line of text in the body of your paper before your bibliography, go to Layout > Breaks > Section Break > Next Page.
3.3.2. After you create this section break, you should see the page number 1 on the first page of what will become your bibliography. Double click into the footer of this page, highlight the page number, and right click it. Then, choose Format Page Numbers.
3.3.3. Under Page Numbering, choose to Continue from the previous section. Click OK.
3.3.4. Double click back into the main text area of the first page of your bibliography to fill out that section. If your bibliography reaches beyond one page long, you should see that each of the pages in your bibliography after the first one displays the next consecutive page number in the top right.
Conclusion
It can take some getting used to. But learning how to properly set up page numbers for short essays in Word can save you a great deal of time and frustration figuring it out by trial and error.
How have you normally set up short essay page numbers in Word?
For students in any graduate program, mastering the full range of available research tools is crucial for efficient and consistent productivity. Dr. Stark has mastered these tools—the most important of which is Microsoft Word…. Students eager to take their work to the next level would do well to follow Dr. Stark’s in-depth guidance.
Word does have a built in feature to insert a title (or “cover”) page. But none of the default versions of this page reflects what the Student Supplement wants very closely. So I find it’s simplest just to create the page yourself. ↩
If you’re writing in biblical studies, you need to be able to type biblical languages. Transliteration might work in some cases, but you can’t and shouldn’t always bank on being able to use transliterations when you write.
Where We Were, Where We Are, and Why Unicode Is Important
In years gone by, typing biblical languages on an English keyboard required using a font that would mask English text and make it look like Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic.
For Hebrew and Aramaic, this often required typing the text backwards (i.e., left to right in the direction of English).
If you wanted to submit a paper electronically, you’d then have to ensure you used the proper font or sent or embedded the proper font with your paper.
Without that, “λόγος” could easily turn out to look like “lo/gov”—or worse—to whomever opened the file without that font installed. Thankfully, Unicode has changed all this.
“Unicode” is a system that “provides a unique number for every character, no matter what platform, device, application or language.”1
These unique numbers—like “03C2″—might not mean much to humans. But, they allow computers to tell exactly what character is being used, independent of the font in which it is typed.
So, for instance, a computer will know that “03C2” represents a human-readable final sigma (ς) and not, a Hebrew vav (ו). The computer can distinguish between these two characters even though, in by gone days, both have sometimes been mapped to the “v” on an English keyboard.
If this is all a bit too geeky, just remember that, with Unicode, a sigma is a sigma, a vav is a vav, and changing fonts doesn’t change that.
You’re already familiar with changing fonts between Times New Roman, Arial, or whatever (wingdings excepted) and having your English text remain the same.
Typing in Unicode means you can do the same thing with Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic in Times New Roman, Arial, or another Unicode-compliant font. That text will remain the same when you change fonts or send a file to someone else. If that person doesn’t have your font, their computer might substitute a different font, but it shouldn’t display gibberish.
Installing a Keyboard, or Keymap
Of course, if you want your computer to be able to tell the difference between when you press the “v” key and mean for it to use “v” and when you press the “v” key and mean for it to use “ς” or “ו”, you need some software to help.
Here enter biblical language keyboard software. You can find this available freely online or, with perhaps more limited functionality, as features within your operating system (e.g., Mac, Windows).2
Personally, I’ve preferred and used the keyboards provided by Logos. These are available for Greek, Hebrew/Aramaic, Coptic, Syriac, and transliteration.
(And no, you don’t need to purchase a base package to use these. They’re free and independent of the Logos system itself. So, you can even use these software keyboards if you use another Bible software platform altogether.)
You can download and install whichever combination of these keyboards you prefer. Inside each of the ZIP files available for download is also a PDF showing exactly what key strokes or combinations will produce what text output on the screen.
Most of the keyboards should install pretty simply by following the instructions provided on the download page. There are two possible exceptions:
For a right-to-left language (e.g., Hebrew), you may need to reboot your computer or allow Windows to install support for right-to-left (or “complex script”) languages in order to use that keyboard.
For the transliteration keyboard, you may end up with two English keyboards installed. To check this in Windows 10, search for “language” in the Windows menu, and open “Edit language and keyboard options.” From there, let the language list populate at the bottom of the window, and click “English” and “Options.” From there, simply click the standard US QWERTY keyboard layout, and choose to remove it. That way, you can simply use the more robust transliteration keyboard as your basic English keyboard, and you needn’t keep a fourth keyboard around to be in your way in the keyboard switcher menu (see below).
Switching between Keyboards
To use a particular keyboard layout in Windows 10, simply choose that layout from the language button that should appear in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen by the default clock position.
Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Shift to cycle through the languages in this menu. This will cycle through the keyboard layouts without an on-screen prompt. And you’ll quickly learn the order in which they come up.
You can also change keyboard layouts by using the shortcut Windows key+Space. This will pop the language selector up on the screen and allow you to see where you are in the cycle of selecting a language to type in.
With the Windows key depressed, press the Space bar repeatedly to cycle through the list of available languages.
When you’re ready to type in English again, simply change the keyboard switcher back to English, and you’re good to go.
Conclusion
Whether you’re just learning biblical languages or you have gotten pretty comfortable with them, being able to type them in Unicode will help you communicate more clearly and simply with others about these languages.
Once you invest just a few minutes in getting properly set up, you’ll be ready to write, and you’ll enjoy a much more seamless experience when using these languages in your writing.
SBL also has a number of resources that may prove helpful as you get set up for and used to typing in Unicode Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic via a software keyboard. ↩
One of the best ways to ensure consistent formatting in a Word document is to use styles.1 But, you might also need to be able to turn these styles into “direct” formatting.
If you apply a style to text, the text will be formatted as the style specifies (e.g., a first-level heading, a block quotation). This helps keep things consistent and avoid forgetting something like applying italics or bold here or there as you’ve done elsewhere.
If you need to change the formatting, just modify the style, and the formatting for all text with that style will update accordingly. There’s no need to update every place the style occurs individually.
So far so good, but making a single document out of many with different style definitions can be a real headache. And styles may not always transfer completely from one computer to another.
Consequently, SBL Press prescribes,
Do not use your word processor’s style option to mark different elements of the text (body text, headings, subheads). (SBL Handbook of Style, §2.1.3)
Other publishers have similar requirements.
If we’re writing for SBL Press or a publisher with similar requirements, does this mean we can’t use styles? Or, if we do use styles, do we consign ourselves to hours more editing work in order to remove them when we’re preparing to send off a typescript?
Fortunately, no. Word styles can be converted to the direct formatting that SBL Press and others want. Here are 10 steps to do just that.21
1. Add two macros to Word.
If your document doesn’t have footnotes (e.g., parenthetical citations), you can skip down below and just do steps 4–6.
If your document has footnotes, you’ll want to start by creating two macros in Word. A “macro” is a small program that runs inside an Office application like Word.
Don’t worry. You don’t need to know anything about writing a macro. Assuming you use Office 365, just open Word, and go to View > Macros > Create to get started.3
Scroll to the bottom of any macro list that comes up. Press Enter or click on a blank line after anything else in the window.
Copy and paste there the following:
Sub UnLinkNotes()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim nRng As Range, fNote As Footnote, nRef As String
With ActiveDocument
For Each fNote In .Footnotes
With fNote
With .Reference.Characters.First
.InsertAfter "]"
.Characters.Last.Font.Superscript = True
.Collapse wdCollapseStart
.InsertCrossReference wdRefTypeFootnote, wdFootnoteNumberFormatted, fNote.Index
nRef = .Characters.First.Fields(1).Result
.Characters.First.Fields(1).Unlink
.InsertBefore "["
.Characters.First.Font.Superscript = True
End With
.Range.Cut
End With
Set nRng = .Range
With nRng
.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
.End = .End - 1
If .Characters.Last <> Chr(12) Then .InsertAfter vbCr
.InsertAfter nRef & " "
With .Paragraphs.Last.Range
.Style = "Footnote Text"
.Words.First.Style = "Footnote Reference"
End With
.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
.Paste
If .Characters.Last = Chr(12) Then .InsertAfter vbCr
End With
Next
For Each fNote In .Footnotes
fNote.Delete
Next
End With
Set nRng = Nothing
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub
After this, press Enter to go to a new line again. Then, copy and paste the following:
Sub ReLinkNotes()
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer, l As Integer, FtRng As Range
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
With ActiveDocument
Set FtRng = Selection.Range
With FtRng
.Style = "Footnote Text"
With .Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Text = "\[([0-9]{1,})\]"
.Replacement.Text = "\1"
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchWildcards = True
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
k = .Paragraphs(1).Range.Words(1) - 1
j = k
l = ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Count - k
For i = 1 To .Paragraphs.Count
If .Paragraphs(i).Range.Words(1) = j + 1 Then
j = j + 1
End If
Next i
End With
For i = k + 1 To j
StatusBar = "Finding Footnote Location: " & i + l
With .Content.Find
.Text = "[" & i & "]"
.Font.Superscript = True
.MatchWholeWord = True
.MatchWildcards = False
.Execute
If .Found = True Then
.Parent.Select
With Selection
.Delete
.Footnotes.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Text:=""
End With
End If
End With
Next i
With FtRng
For i = k + 1 To j
StatusBar = "Transferring Footnote: " & i + l
With .Paragraphs(1).Range
.Cut
With ActiveDocument.Footnotes(i + l).Range
.Paste
.Words(1).Delete
.Characters.Last.Delete
End With
End With
Next i
On Error Resume Next
End With
Set FtRng = Nothing
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub
Click the save button, and you can close the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.
Congratulations! You just added two macros to Word. One is tilted UnLinkNotes. The other is titled ReLinkNotes.
You only have to do this step once.4 Now when you go to View > Macros, you should see both UnLinkNotes and ReLinkNotes in the macro list.5
2. Save a backup copy of your file.
Just in case something goes wrong, make a backup copy of your document before you run the first macro. That way, you don’t risk losing anything in the unlikely event that something goes awry.
3. Unlink your footnotes.
In order to move Word styles to direct formatting, you’ll need to open the file in WordPad. Unfortunately, WordPad doesn’t support footnotes. So, in order not to lose your footnotes, you need to “unlink” them so that they’re saved as body text that appears in the main page area at the end of your document.6
To do this, open your document, and go to View > Macros. Click the UnLinkNotes macro, and click Run.
Be patient. Depending on how long your document is, how many footnotes you have, and how fast your computer is, unlinking the notes may take some time.
When the screen refreshes and you see “[1]” where the anchor was for your first footnote, the macro should be done.
4. Save your file in RTF.
If it isn’t already, save your file in RTF (“Rich Text Format”). RTF is much like the default DOC(X) format for Word but more basic.
You can do this in Word for Office 365 by going to the File tab > Save a Copy.7 Input your desired file name, and choose where you want to save the file.
From the file type dropdown box, choose to save the file in “Rich Text Format (*.rtf).” Then, click Save.
5. Open and resave your RTF file in WordPad.
Open your RTF file in WordPad, or a similar program. Make some minor change to the file (e.g., adding a space somewhere). Save the file. Delete your change, and save the file again.
This process will get WordPad to overwrite the existing RTF file with all Word’s styles in it. When WordPad overwrites the file, it will change all the formatting to “direct” formatting and reset the style for the whole document to “Normal.”
So, for instance, you won’t have a “Heading 1” style in use any more. But, the formatting for the Heading 1 style will still show up where you had applied that style.
Once you’ve completed this step, you can close WordPad.
6. Open your RTF in Word, and resave it in whatever format you need.
If you need to submit the file in DOC or DOCX format, go ahead and resave it in that format now. To do so, open it in Word, and use the same process as in step 4 above.
When you choose the file format, just choose whatever format besides RTF that you actually need.
7. Check for a stray period, and edit accordingly.
When you ran the UnLinkNotes macro, the final punctuation mark (probably a period) in your conclusion may have gotten moved to after your last footnote. If so, you may see no punctuation at the end of your conclusion and two at the end of your last footnote.
If this has happened, add a period after your conclusion, and delete one of the two after your last footnote.
8. Select your footnotes.
Scroll to the end of the document, and find the “1” that indicates the start of the text of your first footnote.
Use the mouse or keyboard to select the “1” and all the following text in all of your footnotes. That is, at the end of this step, you should have all your footnotes selected at the same time.
9. Relink your footnotes.
Relink your footnotes by going to View > Macros. Click the ReLinkNotes macro, and click Run.
Be patient. Depending on how long your document is, how many footnotes you have, and how fast your computer is, relinking the notes may take some time.
10. Add any needed paragraph formatting to your footnotes.
After the ReLinkNotes macro finishes, your footnotes will all be back in their places and all flush with the left-hand margin.
If you need to add a first-line indentation, add spacing between footnotes, or adjust the line spacing within the notes, you can do that now by selecting all your footnotes and applying the appropriate formatting.
Conclusion
After these steps, you’ll have a document with the only “Normal” style and direct formatting in use throughout. If you need to shift styles to direct formatting in another document, just repeat steps 2–10 above for that document.
By doing so, you’ll get the benefit of formatting consistency by using styles and save yourself a good amount of work if you need to remove those styles as you prepare to submit your typescript. Happy editing!
Tired of fighting with Word? Want to be done with frustrated hours fussing over how to get the formatting you need?
My new guide shows you how to bypass all of this so you can let Word work for you while you focus on your research.
For students in any graduate program, mastering the full range of available research tools is crucial for efficient and consistent productivity. Dr. Stark has mastered these tools—the most important of which is Microsoft Word…. Students eager to take their work to the next level would do well to follow Dr. Stark’s in-depth guidance.
For pointing me in the right direction when I was initially mulling over this question, I’m very grateful to the MS Office Forums. ↩
If you use an earlier version of Word, the way you get to the macros tool may be a bit different. If you have difficulty finding it, try Googling for “how to create a macro in Microsoft Word [your Word year or version].” ↩
You will need to perform this step once per computer. So, if you start using a new machine, just come back to this post to follow the instructions and find the macro text to copy and paste into Word on your new machine. ↩
If you use Zotero or a similar citation manager, you may want to unlink your citations before going through this process. ↩
If you use an earlier version of Word and have difficulty saving your file in RTF, try Googling for “how to save a file in RTF in Microsoft Word [your Word year or version].” ↩
In Dan Gookin’s Word 2016 for Dummies (Wiley, 2016), he provides a good deal of helpful guidance for beginning Word users. One particularly helpful resource that may be of interest more broadly is his nicely condensed presentation of prefix keys for producing diacritical marks (pg. 256, reproduced below).
As the name suggests, the prefix key combination gets typed first, then the letter to which the diacritic should attach, and voila—the appropriate combined character is produced.
Tired of fighting with Word? Want to be done with frustrated hours fussing over how to get the formatting you need?
My new guide shows you how to bypass all of this so you can let Word work for you while you focus on your research.
For students in any graduate program, mastering the full range of available research tools is crucial for efficient and consistent productivity. Dr. Stark has mastered these tools—the most important of which is Microsoft Word…. Students eager to take their work to the next level would do well to follow Dr. Stark’s in-depth guidance.
Reading time:< 1minutesThe “for dummies” series has a couple good introductions to Microsoft Word (for all and specifically “for professionals”). But, these texts seem to concentrate on Word as it appears in Windows, which is sometimes surprisingly inconsistent with how ostensibly the same version of Word appears in Mac OS.
The similarly themed “idiot’s guides” series also doesn’t appear to have a text that addresses the current version for Mac users. The Shelly Cashman series text also seems to leave Mac users with less helpful guidance than those running Windows.
Is anyone aware of something that would fit this bill? General introductions to Microsoft Office tend not to have enough detail on Word. So, something specifically geared toward Word 2016 would be ideal.
Overlining is comparatively straightforward in Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice. But, for Microsoft Word users, overlining still isn’t a default formatting feature, as is its companion underlining.
Sometimes inserting a symbol or special character will work if you can find one that matches the overlined character you need. In other cases, Word’s cache of symbols and special characters simply isn’t large enough to cover everything (e.g., when discussing nomina sacra). Sometimes, creating a character image might work, but inserting an image can create issues with text flow and line spacing.
In this case, vertical line spacing seems like it isn’t easily disturbed, but you may notice a bit of extra horizontal spacing between what’s inserted via the field code or formula editor and the rest of the surrounding text. Having overlining as a built-in text format would still be preferable, but using this work-around seems to yield pretty reasonable results.
Tired of fighting with Word? Want to be done with frustrated hours fussing over how to get the formatting you need?
My new guide shows you how to bypass all of this so you can let Word work for you while you focus on your research.
For students in any graduate program, mastering the full range of available research tools is crucial for efficient and consistent productivity. Dr. Stark has mastered these tools—the most important of which is Microsoft Word…. Students eager to take their work to the next level would do well to follow Dr. Stark’s in-depth guidance.
(Update: HT to Andrew Kinsey via Facebook for correctly noting that I hadn’t previously simply collapsed the field code option into the use of the formula editor. The two methods achieve the same results but do deserve to be noted separately since one might be more convenient than the other.)
