Word Page Numbers Page x of y where there are non-numbered pages

One of my biggest frustrations with Word is where I have non-numbered pages (or pages using roman numerals before the start of the document) and trying to show the total number of pages for the body of the document only. It always shows the total number of pages in the document, not the number of numbered pages so it looks like there are missing pages as shown below. This looks like page 2 is missing but it isn’t actually because the first page of the document is an unnumbered page (eg title page or something similar)

What you really want to show is something like this where there are 3 pages of the document but the first page is unnumbered and the total number of pages is the correct number for the actual useful part of the document.

Up until now, I’ve avoided using the page x of y format but not anymore!

I found a solution in the article How to offset page numbering in Word to allow for initial pages. Following the instructions I got it working correctly. I was using my laptop so I had to also use the fn key to get F9 but the rest works well. The quick parts is also in the Header/Footer contextual tab so you don’t need to go back to the Insert Tab.

Don’t forget to use the CTRL + F9 to insert the empty field first and to type the = sign and the – whatever the number of fore pages are.

One small issue I am having is that it’s not updating all of the footers so do check that. I solved the problem by copying and pasting the page number part of the footer to the start of the parts where it hadn’t worked properly and that seemed to solve the problem. I think it has something to do with section breaks even though they are set up to use the previous footer content.