How to Insert and Remove Section Breaks in Word

You switched one page to landscape or restarted the page numbers, and now the whole document has shifted, or a blank page will not go away. Section breaks control all of that. Word has four kinds (Next Page, Continuous, Even Page and Odd Page). To insert one, go to Layout > Breaks and pick a type. To remove one, turn on Home > Show/Hide, click just before the break and press Delete. This article covers both halves of the job.

Section Breaks in Word at a Glance

A section is a stretch of a document that keeps its own page layout. Every new Word document starts as one section, and each section break you add splits it into another. Inside a section you can set its own page orientation, headers and footers, page numbering, number of columns, page borders and margins, and you can start page numbering later than page 1.

The steps here apply to Word for Microsoft 365, Word 2024 and Word 2021 on Windows and Mac. Word for the web cannot add, change or delete section breaks, so those jobs need the desktop app.

Choose the Right Type of Section Break

All four types appear under Section Breaks on the Breaks menu. They differ only in where the next section starts.

Type	Where the next section starts	Use it for
Next Page	At the top of the following page	A new chapter, a single landscape page, a part with a different header or page numbers
Continuous	On the same page, right after the break	Switching from one column to two (or back) partway down a page
Even Page	On the next even-numbered page	Chapters or parts that must always begin on an even page
Odd Page	On the next odd-numbered page	Chapters that must always begin on an odd page, as in many printed books

Even Page and Odd Page are the ones that confuse people. Say you put a break at the end of page 3. With an Even Page break, the next section starts on page 4. With an Odd Page break, it starts on page 5, so Word jumps over page 4 to get there. That skipped page is expected behavior, not a mistake, but it is also a common source of “mystery” blank pages.

A section break is not the same as a page break. A page break (Ctrl+Enter, or Page under Page Breaks on the same menu) only pushes text to a new page; everything stays in the same section with the same layout. If all you need is a fresh page, a page break is simpler, and adding a blank page or a page break in Word covers those options. Every extra section is one more set of header links and page settings to manage later. The Column choice on the Breaks menu is also not a section break: it just moves text to the top of the next column in a layout that already has columns.

Insert a Section Break (Windows and Mac)

1. Click at the very start of the text where the new layout should begin, for example the first word of the table that belongs on a landscape page. The break goes in at the cursor, and the new section begins after it.
2. Select the Layout tab on the ribbon. (Older versions of Word called it Page Layout.)
3. In the Page Setup group, select Breaks.
4. Under Section Breaks, choose Next Page, Continuous, Even Page or Odd Page.

5. Keep the cursor after the break and make your formatting change, such as orientation, columns or margins.

With Next Page, Odd Page or Even Page you will see the text jump to a new page. A Continuous break shows no visible change until you change the formatting. If your change lands on the earlier section instead, press Ctrl+Z, click just after the break and try again.

Here is a worked example. Dana’s club newsletter has a full-width welcome note, then three short articles she wants in two columns. She clicks at the start of the first article, chooses Layout > Breaks > Continuous, then sets Layout > Columns to Two. The welcome note stays full width on the same page. If she wants a full-width footer note at the end, she adds a second Continuous break before it and sets that section back to one column.

The same pattern, with Next Page breaks on both sides of the page, is how you turn a single page landscape in Word without rotating the rest of the document.

On a Mac the route and labels are the same (Layout > Breaks, then a type under Section Breaks), and Command+Z undoes a break in the wrong place. Microsoft’s insert a section break instructions have Windows, Mac and web tabs.

Find the Section Breaks Already in Your Document

Breaks are invisible in normal editing, so turn on formatting marks before you add or remove anything. On the Home tab, select Show/Hide (the ¶ button, in the Paragraph group). Each section break appears as a dotted line with a label naming its type, such as Section Break (Next Page) or Section Break (Continuous). A plain page break is labeled Page Break, which is how you tell the two apart. Select Show/Hide again to hide the marks.

Continuous breaks are the easiest to miss, because they can sit at the end of a short line. If a break is hard to spot or click in Print Layout, Draft view (View > Draft) shows the document without page edges and can make breaks easier to see and select. Switching back is explained in getting a Word document back to its usual view.

What Happens to Your Formatting When You Remove a Break

Deleting a section break joins the text before and after it into one section, and Microsoft’s delete a section break page states that the combined section uses the formatting of the section that followed the break. In other words, the part above the break changes.

Example: Jordan’s report has pages 1 through 4 in portrait with a “Draft” header, then a Next Page break, then a landscape page 5 with no header. If Jordan deletes that break, pages 1 through 4 turn landscape and lose the header, because they now follow page 5’s settings. The text itself is not deleted, but it reflows into the new layout.

Before you delete, decide which of these you actually need:

• Delete the break when it is a stray one, or when you want the whole merged stretch to look like the part after the break.
• Change the break’s type when the break belongs there but starts the next section in the wrong place, for example a Next Page break that leaves a blank page where a Continuous break would do.
• Keep the break and use Link to Previous when your only goal is matching headers or footers across sections. Microsoft recommends this over removing the break.

For a long document, save a copy first (File > Save a Copy, or Save As) so you can go back if the layout changes more than you expected.

Remove a Single Section Break

On Windows:

1. Select Home > Show/Hide so the breaks are visible.
2. Scroll to the break you want to remove and check its label so you know which type it is.
3. Click just before the break, at the left end of the dotted line. You can also drag across the dotted line to select it.
4. Press Delete.
5. Scroll up and check the pages before the old break. If the layout is wrong, press Ctrl+Z to put the break back.

To get rid of a section that sits between two breaks, such as one landscape page, delete the break after it first, then the break before it. Because each deletion takes the formatting of the section that follows, the page ends up matching the pages after it.

On a Mac, turn on Show/Hide from the Home tab, click the break (or drag across the dotted line) so it is selected, and press delete. If a character disappears instead, press Command+Z and select the break again before pressing the key.

If the break will not go away, two things are worth checking. First, if Track Changes is on (Review tab), your deletion may be recorded as a tracked change rather than applied, so turn Track Changes off and try again. Second, try selecting the break in Draft view (View > Draft).

Remove All Section Breaks at Once

Find and Replace can strip every section break in one pass. Every section then merges into one, so the whole document takes the layout of the final section: different orientations, column layouts and separate headers all go. Save a copy before you start.

In Word for Windows:

1. Press Ctrl+H, or select Replace in the Editing group on the Home tab.
2. Select More to expand the dialog.
3. Make sure Use wildcards is not checked.
4. Click in the Find what box, select Special, and choose Section Break. Word enters the code ^b. You can also type ^b yourself.

5. Leave the Replace with box empty.
6. Select Replace All. Word tells you how many replacements it made.

Press Ctrl+Z right away if the result is not what you wanted. The ^b code matches all four section break types. Manual page breaks (^m) and column breaks (^n) have their own codes on the same Special menu, so they are left alone. More on those codes is in using Find and Replace in Word.

Change a Section Break’s Type Instead of Deleting It

You do not need to delete and re-insert a break to change its type. Changing it in place keeps the section’s headers, orientation and other settings. On Windows, following Microsoft’s change a section break steps:

1. Click anywhere in the section that begins right after the break.
2. On the Layout tab, select the small arrow at the corner of the Page Setup group to open the Page Setup dialog.
3. Select the Layout tab inside the dialog.
4. Open the Section start list and choose the new type, for example Continuous.
5. Select OK.

In Word for Mac, click in the section after the break, choose Format > Document, select the Layout tab and pick a type from Section start. If your version does not show it there, delete the break and insert the right type instead, then check the formatting.

Give Each Section Its Own Header, Footer or Page Numbers

Sections start out linked, so a new section copies the header and footer of the one before it. To make them different, Microsoft’s Link to Previous instructions work like this:

1. Insert a Next Page section break where the header or footer should change (Layout > Breaks > Next Page).
2. Double-click the header (or footer) on the first page of the new section to open it.
3. Select Link to Previous in the header and footer tools to turn it off. If the button is dimmed, you are in the first section or there is no section break before this page.

4. Type or change the header or footer for this section.
5. Select Close Header and Footer or press Esc.

Headers and footers are linked separately, so repeat step 3 in the footer if both should differ. This setup also lets each chapter carry its own numbering, such as 1-1 for the first page of chapter one and 3-1 for chapter three. For restarting numbers or starting them on page 3, see how to add page numbers in Word.

Section Breaks in Word for the Web

Word for the web can add page breaks but not section breaks, and to delete or change a section break you need the Word desktop app. Section breaks that already exist in a file still shape its layout online. To work on them, use the Open in Word command, make the change in the desktop app and save. The file stays where it was stored, such as OneDrive or SharePoint. You can still delete empty paragraphs and manual page breaks in the browser.

Fix Common Section Break Problems

• A blank page after a break. Check for empty ¶ marks just before a Next Page break and delete them, or change an Odd Page or Even Page break to Continuous (see the Page Setup steps above). More causes are in deleting a page in Word.
• Page numbers restart partway through. A section was set to start at a specific number. Open the page number format settings in that section and choose to continue from the previous section.
• Breaks you never added. Text pasted from another document can carry section breaks with it, and converted files may contain them too. Show/Hide reveals them, and Find and Replace removes them in bulk.

Section Break Questions Readers Keep Asking

Can I remove a break but keep the formatting above it?

Not in one step. Note the earlier section’s settings (orientation, margins, columns, header) before deleting, then reapply them to the merged section from the Layout tab. If the difference is only in headers or footers, keeping the break and using Link to Previous is less work.

Next step: turn on Show/Hide in your document and read the break labels before you insert, change or delete anything.