Do Your Electronic Company Documents Need Page Numbers?

 

If You Say Yes—Electronic Documents Still Need Page Numbers

Inevitably, not too far away from today, you’ll have to update page 134 out of 200. Well, since you have page numbers, that may cause your pages to move. So, think ahead with these recommendations:

1. When you’re creating your document, leave a couple of paragraphs of blank space between each section. Don’t jam-pack your content from chapter to chapter.
2. Leave a couple of pages intentionally blank after each section and at the end of your document.

Both of these points allow for future adjustments. However, you may still have to edit page numbers from the updates on, so be prepared for that.

 

If You Say No—Electronic Documents Don’t Need Page Numbers

This is a good choice, but rather than say an absolute “NO” to page numbers, we give you a hybrid solution below:

1. Split the document into sections.
2. Paginate within those sections. For example, your Human Resources Section has 20 pages. Paginate those from 1 to 20.
3. The next section is Safety which has 18 pages. Paginate those pages from 1 to 18.
4. But do not paginate consecutively from 1 to 38. If you do, you may give yourself a headache when updating pages 29 to 30 one day.

 

How Would You Get to the Sections If No Consecutive Page Numbers?

Easy. We wrote a blog about it last week. It’s called an Interactive Table of Contents (TOC), also known as a Clickable Table of Contents.

Basically, you’d create a clickable TOC at the beginning of your document with the main sections only. Like this:

• Human Resources
• Safety
• Next Section of Your Business
• And the Next…

You’d format it so it’s appealing, and all team members would have to do is click to get to those sections. Once in the HR Section, if they need to reference a page number, they can, like this: (Human Resources, Page 18.)

 

The Bonus for You In this Hybrid Option?

If ever you do have to update page 18 from your HR section, you don’t have to worry about touching Safety or any other sections. You simply operate within the section you need to update, and voilà. C’est tout.

 

Who Are We?

We are Miranda Park Learning, your instructional design experts. When you’re ready to update your company manuals, contact us. We’ll make sure they’re effective for future updates as your business evolves.