How to Get Roman Numerals in Microsoft Word

If you need to type Roman numerals as part of a document you're working on, you might be surprised to learn that Microsoft Word doesn't have an option for creating Roman numerals in ordinary text. The good news is you can include Roman numerals in Word using a few different approaches, including entering English text in the appropriate way. There are better techniques, though. For example, you can convert any number into a Roman numeral with a tiny bit of code.

The easiest way to get Roman numerals in Word is to type the English letters in the appropriate format. You can write (capital) I as 1, V as 5, X as 10, L as 50, C as 100, D as 500 and M as 1000. You produce more complicated numbers as combinations of these, for example, if you want to write 68, you can write LXVIII. This is 50 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 68.

This is the simplest method, and you can do it without entering unusual characters or messing around in Word's menus.

One of the situations where Word supports Roman numerals automatically is with lists. If you want to have Roman numerals as the start of each list entry, go to the "Home" tab and choose the "Numbering" option from the "Paragraph" group, which looks like a list with 1, 2 and 3 as the first letters. Click the drop-down arrow next to the icon and choose the Roman numerals option, which has I, II and III as the first option.

Each number populates after you write the previous list entry and press "Enter."

You can also add Roman numerals for page numbers in Microsoft Word. This works basically like adding them into a document any other time, so go to "Insert" and then "Page Number" in the "Header & Footer" section. You can choose to put the numbers wherever you want and select any of the plain number options based on the position you want.

Turn these into Roman numerals using the "Format Page Number" option that appears after you add the numbers. In the window that appears, click the drop-down menu beside "Number format" and choose the Roman numeral option you want (either capitals or lower case).

If you have a big or difficult number to convert to Roman numerals, use the feature that converts any number into Roman numerals. Press "Crtl" and "F9" to open the code field. You know you've done it when two curly brackets appear with the cursor between them. Type "=1234*Roman" in the space and then press "F9" again to complete the conversion. Enter the number you want to convert in place of 1234 in the example.

In most cases, either this approach or the first one is the most appropriate, unless you're specifically looking for page numbers or new item markers for a list.