How to Insert a Page or Section Break in a Microsoft Word Document

Sometimes you may want to insert a page break or a section break in a Word document before the application does it automatically. Section breaks are especially helpful when creating books or reports. For each section, you can specify formatting, such as header and footer appearance, sequence of page numbers, page orientation (portrait or landscape), and page margins.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Word

Insert a Page Break or Column Break

1. Place the cursor where you want the line break or column break in your document.

2. Go to the Insert menu, and select Break.

3. Select the Page Break radio button to insert a page break or the Column Break radio button to insert a column break.

4. Click OK.

Insert a Section Break

1. Place the cursor where you want the section break.

2. Go to the Insert menu, and select Break.

3. Select from one of four section breaks: Next Page (begins the section at the top of the next page), Continuous (begins the new section on the same page), Even Page and Odd Page (begins the new section on the next odd-numbered or even-numbered page in your document.

4. Click OK.

Tips & Warnings

• A page break moves all of the text to the right of the cursor after the page break.

• A column break moves all of the text to the right of the cursor into a new column.

• You might insert a page break when a heading falls at the bottom of a page.

• It's a good idea to wait until your content is final before adding page breaks. Late additions or deletions can leave you with one sentence on a page.

• Press Enter (PC) or Return (Macintosh) to make sure each section break begins on its own line within the document.

• A section break moves all of the text to the right of the cursor after the section break.

• Show Paragraph symbols to view the double dotted line Word inserts to show where section breaks occur.