Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Turning Off Line Numbering.

Turning Off Line Numbering

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 7, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365

In other issues of WordTips, you learned how to turn on the line numbering feature. (It is great for legal or research-oriented documents.) There may be times, however, when you want to exclude a certain paragraph from line numbering. In order to do this, follow these steps:

Position the insertion point in the paragraph that you don't want to have line numbers.
Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
Click the small icon at the lower-right corner of the Paragraph group. Word displays the Paragraph dialog box.
Make sure the Line and Page Breaks tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box.

Select the Suppress Line Numbers check box.
Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (8839) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Turning Off Line Numbering.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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