How to add line numbers to the transcript section within a document in Word.

To complete this task you will need two documents

I. Your interview transcript document

II. Your qualitative report document

1. For your initial analysis make sure your interview transcript is complete and the lines of text
are numbered.

To do this, go to the Page Layout tab, click on Line Numbers, then in the drop down menu
click Continuous. Save the document

2. Write your qualitative report.

3. Your transcripts should be put in the appendix section of your qualitative report. The
appendix section should be on the next page of your report after your references.

Title the page, Appendix A, and add any description you want to give this appendix title
e.g. ‘Appendix A – Transcripts’. If your transcript is in your second appendix then title the
page Appendix B, or Appendix C if it’s your third etc.

4. Go to your transcript document and highlight all of your transcript (you can use Ctrl+A) and
copy it (Ctrl+C).
5. Go back to your report document, and after the Appendix title, paste in your transcript
(Ctrl+V).

The line numbers have obviously disappeared. So to get them back onto the transcript, but without
adding them to the rest of the report, do the following:

6. Click just before the first word of your transcript e.g. ‘Interview Transcript 1’ so that your
cursor remains there.
7. Go to Page Layout tab, then Breaks (just above line numbers) and on the drop down menu
select Continuous. This will begin a new ‘section’ in the page, although you won’t actually
see anything happen so don’t worry that nothing visibly changes.

8. Now go to Page Layout tab again, click on Line Numbers, then in the drop down menu click
Continuous. This time, the numbers will appear only after the point at which you asked
Word to insert a break.
 9. Check that these numbers match up to the numbers on your original transcript – otherwise
the line numbers you’ve given for quotes in your report will be wrong. If the numbers don’t
match up, it might be because you’ve clicked in the wrong place before asking for the break,
or maybe there is a blank line or two before the transcript starts that have been numbered
in your original but not the one in your report.

If you want to include another appendix after the transcript e.g. your consent form, you will need to
stop Word numbering your text at the end of the transcript, otherwise the other appendices will end
up with unnecessary line numbers.

To do this:

10. Click just to the right of the very last word and full stop of your transcript. Hit enter/return
twice and leave your cursor there. Now go back to Page Layout tab, then Breaks (just above
line numbers) and then on the drop down menu select Next Page. The cursor will now have
moved to the next page.

11. Go back to Page Layout tab again and click on Line Numbers. Then in the drop down menu
select None. Now the material from this point on will not be numbered.