How to Remove Page Breaks in Word Online

There are several formatting objects and settings in Word Online that can be difficult to manage, but one of the most common concerns is manually-inserted breaks. If you’re using Word Online, you might want to know how to remove page breaks in Word Online.

While the page break mechanism in Word Online works well when there are no specific elements that must appear on specific pages, you may discover that certain documents need the addition of manual page breaks to obtain the desired structure.

However, manual page breaks can be tricky to deal with if you are still updating or adding material to your document, so you may discover that a previously valid page break is suddenly incorrect. If a page break was previously entered manually, you can delete it in Word Online.

How to Remove a Page Break in Word Online

Open the document.
Click on the line just below the page break.
Press the backspace key on your keyboard.

This article continues below with more information on how to remove a page break in Word Online.

How to Delete a Page Break in a Word Online Document

Please keep in mind that this article assumes you have a manually inserted page break and want to eliminate it. These procedures will not remove automatic page breaks that occur when you add enough material to a page to create a new page. This only applied to manually inserted page breaks in a document.

Step 1: Sign in to your Microsoft Account by visiting Word Online at https://office.live.com/start/Word.aspx.

Step 2. Open the document that contains the page break you want to remove.

Step 3: Place your cursor on the line by clicking on the line directly below the manually inserted page break.

Step 4: Delete the page break by pressing the Backspace key on your computer.

If the cursor was not at the beginning of the line or on the line just below the page break, you may need to press Backspace several times.

Removing a Section Break in Word

1. Open your Word document.

2. At the top of the window, click the Home tab.

3. In the Paragraph part of the ribbon, click the Show/Hide button.

4. In your document, locate a section break, then click your mouse on the left side of the break, hold it down, and drag it to the right end of the break to select the entire thing.

Alternatively, you can position your mouse cursor near the left end of the gap; however, you may discover that some of the breaks remain after deletion.

5. On your keyboard, press the Delete key (not the Backspace key) to erase the section break.

To add another section break to a document, click at the desired location, then select the Layout tab, then click the Breaks button, and then select the desired type of section break.

Now that you know how to eliminate section breaks in Word, you will be able to repair random spacing errors that may arise in documents you create or documents you modify that was created by someone else.

How to Get Rid of a Section Break in Word on an iPhone

The mobile version of the Microsoft Word application that you use on your iPhone or Android smartphone includes most of the same functions as the desktop version.

Fortunately, this means you can use the phone version of the program to eliminate section breaks from a document.

On your iPhone, launch the Word app.
Open the file.
At the top of the screen, tap the pencil icon.
Tap the three dots in the center of the screen’s horizontal bar.
In the horizontal menu bar, select Home.
Scroll to the bottom and click Paragraph Formatting.
Tap the Paragraph Marks button.
Tap and hold the section break, then select it.
To erase the break, select the Delete option.

How to Insert a Section Break in Microsoft Word

While this post has concentrated on how to remove section breaks from documents, if you were not the person who introduced the break to the document, you may be curious as to how they got there in the first place.

Launch Microsoft Word and open your document.
Click where you want the break to appear in the document.
At the top of the window, click the Layout tab.
In the Page Setup group on the ribbon, click the Breaks button, then select the required type of section break.

Section breaks can be added to a Word document in the following ways:

Next Page – This form of break allows you to begin the next section on the document’s next page.

Continuous – This creates a new section on the current page.

Even Page – the next part will begin on the next even-numbered page.

Odd Page – This will begin the next section on the next odd-numbered page.

More Information on How to Delete Microsoft Word Section Breaks

After you’ve shown the formatting marks in your document, you then see the section break you’re attempting to erase by a term in parentheses after the section break indicator.

If you really want a section break in your document, but the one that is present there is incorrect, you must delete it and replace it with one of the options from the list that appears when you expand the breaks drop-down menu.

Manual page breaks are another type of similar formatting mark that you may need to remove.

In both cases, a page break appears at a position in the document where it would not ordinarily appear. These can be spotted if a paragraph in your manuscript that should be on the same page as the previous paragraph is forced to the next page.

To delete a page break in Microsoft Word, follow the instructions above to display the paragraph markings in your document, then place your cursor below the page break and press the Delete key on your keyboard. For additional details, see our instructions on how to remove a page break in Word.

Bonus Method

Another method for removing section breaks, especially if you have more than one, is to use the Find and Replace dialog box. This may be found by clicking the Home tab at the top of the window, then the Editing button in the ribbon, and finally the Replace option.

The Find and Replace window can then be expanded by selecting the More option. Then, inside the Find What field, click the Special drop-down menu at the bottom of the window, and select the Section Break option.

Finally, ensure that the Replace with the field is empty before clicking the Find Next button to go through the various section breaks in your document and delete them separately. Alternatively, you can use the Replace All button to remove all of the section breaks in the document by replacing them with nothing, as indicated by the empty “Replace with” column.

If you’re having difficulties deleting section breaks, it could be because you have “Track Changes” enabled. You can disable this by clicking the Track Changes button in the Tracking group of the ribbon after selecting the Review tab at the top of the window.