Tips for deleting Section Breaks in Microsoft Word

Deleting Section Breaks in Microsoft Word can be notoriously difficult and has led to many a user scrambling for help at the last minute when trying to finalise a document.

While we typically try to avoid and/or reduce the use of section breaks because of this very issue, in practice when configured correctly they effectively manage things like:

  • Cover pages

  • Changes in page orientation and/or columns

  • Different header/footers

  • Page numbering

  • Page backgrounds and/or borders

As such it’s worth communicating to users how section breaks actually work.

It's important to understand that the following formatting elements may be contained in a section:

  • Margins

  • Orientation

  • Multiple pages

  • Paper size

  • Columns

  • Header/footers:

    • Different first page

    • Different odd and even

    • Margin from edge of page

    • Link to previous

  • Vertical alignment

  • Page numbering (i.e. whether it restarts or continues)

And all of the section formatting information is stored in the last “thing” contained in that section (i.e. the trailing section break or paragraph marker in the case of the last section in a document).

Consequently, when you delete a section break in a document the second section's formatting is applied to the first section. This is usually the main source of confusion – most users think that it would work in the opposite way (i.e. that the first section's formatting would remain).

For a section break to be deleted seamlessly, ALL of the first section formatting must be applied to the second section BEFORE the section break is deleted. This means that all of the elements listed above must be addressed.

At TemplaBee we usually provide two custom buttons to achieve this:

  1. Delete section: To delete the entire current section and ensure the section properties are correct.

  2. Merge section: To delete the section break and ensure that the first section's properties are maintained.

For further information or assistance contact TemplaBee for a specialist to help you navigate these challenges in Microsoft Word.

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