. I know there is a place to tick not to number the first page, but danged if I can find it now.

If you set the option for "Different First Page" you must create a separate "First Page Header/Footer." If you don't put a page number there, the page won't display one. Even if you don't want anything in the "First Page Header" there must be a separate (blank) header/footer on a specific "First Page Header/Footer" to "push the page," so that the "Header/Footer for the rest of the pages" begins at the next page.

If you set the option for "Different Odd and Even Pages" you also must have an "Odd Pages Header/Footer" and an "Even Pages Header/Footer."

The most common reason for using the "Different Odd and Even Pages" setting is if your document will be printed two-sided and bound as a book. The left margin on Odd pages and the right margin on even pages (for the preferred numbering) is made wider to allow for the stitching/staples/glue when the pages are bound together, and some prefer that the page numbers be "mirrored" so that they're at the "outside margin." If you don't need it, don't use it.

In Word 2007, the best place to get to the page options is, as above, on the "Page Layout" Tab on the top menu bar. IGNORE all the kiddie icons and click "Margins," and then "Custom Margins" at the bottom. You can also get to similar settings by double-clicking into a header or footer and selecting the "Header and Footer Tools" supertab that pops up when you're "in" a header or footer (see below).

From the Page Layout Tab, Click Margins, Click Cusotm Margins, Click the Layout tab. (This menu is somewhat similar to the menu in prior versions, and is a little more "intelligible" than other "new and improved" places to make/change the settings.)

If you don't have either of the layout options checked, you can only use a single header, the same for all pages (in the current section) so you'll see a blank header. If one or more of the options is set, when you "click into" a header or footer you should see a little "flag" in the left margin that tells you whether you're in a "First Page Header" or "Odd Page Header" or "Even Page Header."

(It appears that there must be at least three pages in the section for you to see all three of the header/footer forms.)

In Word 2007 & later, with a header or footer "opened" by double-clicking in one you should find a "supertab" in the top menu bar above the "Design" tab. You need to click on that "Header and Footer Tools" tab to get to a whole new toolbar that lets you switch to next/previous, between header/footer, link to previous, and even a real button to Close Header/Footer.

"Link to Previous" in the "Navigation Pane" on this new toolbar has exactly the same meaning as "Same as Previous" in earlier Word versions. The other two, "Next Section" and "Previous Section" just move you to the nearest section breaks where the header/footer might change.

You can change the page layout, and all of your header settings at any "Insert Section Break New Page." On the "Header and Footer Tools" tab above, it appears to imply that if you don't click Link to Previous changes apply only "from this point forward." The "other menu" at Page Layout | Margins | Custom Margins | Layout allows you t explicitly specify "Applies to Whole Document" or "Applies This Point Forward."

Inserting a "Section Break Continuous," as is done when you highlight a section of text and apply "Multiple Columns" to that text, should not affect your header/footer setup. (I've found some apparent impact in a couple of documents, but I don't yet know whether there's some other reason for it.)

To leave a first page unnumbered, you could use the "kiddie method" of making a header/footer without a page number for the first page, inserting a "Section Break New Page" to start the second page and creating a separate header for the rest of the pages; but that usually results in more problems than it solves.

The conventional, and preferred, method is to set "Different First Page," and create a "First Page header/footer" without a page number, and a separate header footer for "all except first page." A "first page" for a Section, as for the beginning of a chapter, usually needs more changes than just dropping the page number, since the chapter title is already there on the page, and needs to be displayed in header on the other pages.

John