You may have some pages in your document that use line numbering. In the dialogue that lets you apply this style (Layout > Line Numbers) there is no option to change the format of numbers!

The default format of Word line numbering follows the default paragraph style of the normal template. To change this format, open the Word Styles pane (Home > Styles) and locate the “Line Number” style. You need to have enabled the view of all styles, not only the “used”, “recommended”, etc.

Right click the “Line Number” style and modify font size and style.

What if you wanted to create a paragraph with lines numbered in between normal unnumbered text above and below, and a large margin at the side of the numbers? In the dialogue that lets you apply numbering (Layout > Line Numbers) you can define the distance between numbers and text, but there is no option to apply numbering to selected text only, the current paragraph, or even just the current page!

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Word applies line numbering only to Sections! Therefore, any text, parts of a text, paragraphs, whatever, that you need numbered, have to belong to a separate section.

You can use a Continuous section break that would let you have regular unnumbered text immediately before and after the numbered text.

Then in the Page Setup dialogue modify this section to have larger margins, in order for the line numbers to enjoy more blank space at their left, since Word by default puts them right inside the margin where they won’t even be printed!
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* Check also this list with the best free MS Word productivity macros.

Enjoy!