MS Word

Correct a Way-Off Page Count

When I open a long document, Word repaginates part of it, but the total number of pages is wrong.

You might suspect that Word is just as lazy as your average donkey and that this partial repagination is its attempt to fob you off with a half-completed chore. But in fact, Word is probably more anxious to spend your precious processor cycles on spellchecking and grammar-checking your document to within an inch of its life. Repagination can wait until squiggly underlines of both colors have been applied.

If your need for repagination is transitory, press Ctrl+End to go to the end of the document, choose View » Print Layout to force repagination, and give Word a moment or two to comply. Press Shift+F5 to return to your last edit in the document. (Alternatively, if you have the Word Count toolbar displayed, click the Recount button. That too forces repagination.) If you need to force repagination on a regular basis, add the Repaginate command to a convenient keyboard shortcut or menu, as described here:

  1. Choose Tools » Customize to open the Customize dialog box, and then click the Commands tab.

  2. Click Tools in the Categories list.

  3. Drag the Repaginate command from the righthand list to the menu on which you want it to appear. For example, drag it to the Tools menu, wait for the menu to display, drag the command to the appropriate position, and then drop it.

The next time you exit Word, save your Normal template if Word prompts you to do so.

Customize keyboard shortcuts

To customize your keyboard shortcuts, select Tools » Customize, click the Commands tab, and then click the Keyboard button. In the "Save changes in" drop-down list in the Customize Keyboard dialog box, make sure the appropriate template or document is selected. For example, select Normal.dot if you want to affect your Normal template and all documents based on it.

To add a keyboard shortcut, click the appropriate category (for example, File) in the Categories listbox, and then select the command in the Commands list. Click in the "Press new keyboard shortcut" box, and then press the shortcut you want to use. Check the "Currently assigned to" readout to see if the shortcut is already assigned to a command; if so, decide whether to overwrite it or try another shortcut. Click the Assign button to assign the new shortcut.

To remove a keyboard shortcut, click the category and then select the command. Click the shortcut in the "Current keys" list, and then click the Remove button.

When you've finished customizing shortcuts, close the Customize Keyboard dialog box and the Customize dialog box. Shift-click the File menu, choose Save All, and save your changes to the document or template if Word prompts you to do so.