Insert page breaks in Word 2010 documents (manually or automatically)
The most intuitive way to separate pages (force your text or a section to start on another page) is to hit Enter (new empty paragraphs) or Shift+Enter (new blank lines) several times; the problem with that approach is that whenever you have to add new content above that manual break (you always will!), the entire formatting of your Microsoft Word document fails. Like earlier versions, Word 2010 includes a page breaks / section breaks command that takes care of all the heavy lifting behind the scenes, so you no longer have to worry about unwanted "white space" in the middle of a page. In this tutorial, we'll explain how to manually add a page break to your document, remove page breaks, and how to automatically add page breaks when needed e.g., before a paragraph, a table, etc. (Learn more about section breaks.)
Manually add a page break
Follow these simple steps to add a manual page break in a Word 2010 document:
- Once you have finished typing the paragraph or other content after which you want to leave the rest of the page blank, hit Ctrl+Enter on your keyboard.
- As soon as you do, Word 2010 adds a page break and brings you to the next page, where you can resume drafting your document. Aside from that keyboard shortcut, you can also select the "Page Layout" tab, and click on the "Breaks" dropdown (after placing the insertion point (blinking cursor) where you want to insert the break). Select "Page" under "Page Breaks":
- Whether you use the keyboard shortcut or click on the button in the Ribbon, this is how you manually add page breaks in your document; this gives you full control, but can quickly become tedious if you always need a page break under certain conditions. The last section of this tutorial explains how to make Word 2010 automatically add page breaks.
Tip: to clearly see page breaks in your document, ensure that you are working in "Print Layout" view; in the status bar (horizontal strip at the bottom of the window), the leftmost icon should be selected; next section covers showing symbols.
When your print a document, each page break forces using a new sheet of paper.
Remove a page break
There are two ways to delete page breaks after the fact: the easy way is to hit the Backspace key on your keyboard when you are directly at the top of the page that follows the break. If you are concerned about unwittingly deleting other content, proceed as follows instead:
- If needed, select the "Home" tab in the Ribbon ("toolbar" at the top of the screen). Then, click on the "Show paragraph marks and other hidden formatting symbols" button to toggle their visibility on or off in the current document; it's the button with the paragraph symbol:
- You will now see a "
.....Page Break....." mark wherever you have inserted page breaks; just click at the end of that line, as we've done below, and hit the Backspace key! (Or place the insertion point at the beginning of that line and press Delete - whichever you prefer.)
And you will now see the content of the next page appear right after the page break you just deleted.
Tip: press Ctrl+Shift+8 (or Ctrl+*) to toggle the visibility of non-printing characters like page break symbols. see our "Hide / show paragraph marks and other hidden formatting symbols" tutorial for more info and customization options.
Automatically insert page breaks
Word 2010 lets you to customize how paragraphs break in your document; namely, by avoiding "widow paragraphs" (a single, last line of text showing at the top of a page) and "orphan paragraphs" (a single, first line of text appearing at the bottom of a page). A tutorial on managing styles and templates in Word will re-cover this topic as applied to custom style definitions. For now, just follow these steps:
- To affect page breaks for the entire document, select all its text (press Ctrl+A). To only change the current paragraph's settings, select it alone (if you don't, Microsoft Word will automatically apply the setting for the current paragraph, but also any other paragraph you start by pressing Enter when the cursor blinks before the first letter of that paragraph). For the sake of clarity, we'll assume that you have selected the entire document.
- Now select the "Home" tab in the Ribbon, and click on the paragraph options button:
- Then, click on the "Line and Page Breaks" tab of the Paragraph dialog that opened.
- Check the "Widow/Orphan control" checkbox to force Word to include at least two lines of each paragraph on a page; otherwise, Word will show the paragraph on the next page.
- If checked, the "Keep with next" checkbox will ensure that the selected paragraph will always show on the same page as the one following it.
- Check the "Keep Lines Together" to ensure that no paragraph breaks across multiple pages - if it were about to, Word would place it at the beginning of the next page. Note that tables and bulleted list items are treated as "paragraph", and this is the way to keep them together.
- "Page Break Before" forces Word 2010 to start a new page at the beginning of all paragraphs with that setting - this not only spares you from continuously inserting manual page breaks, it also allows you to change behavior for an entire section of your document, without having to (manually here too) remove all page breaks you no longer want!
- Click "OK" after having made your choice, and Word will apply your setting to your selection.