MS-Word / General Formatting

Controlling What Appears on Each Page

When you add more content than will fit within the document's top and bottom margins, Word creates a new page by inserting a soft page break. A soft page break produces separate pages in Print Layout view and is displayed as a dotted line in Draft view. If you want to control how pages break, you can insert a manual page break in one of three ways:

  • Click Page Break in the Pages group on the Insert tab.
  • Click Breaks in the Page Setup group on the Page Layout tab, and then click Page.
  • Press Ctrl+Enter.

A manual page break produces separate pages in Print Layout view, and appears as a dotted line with the words Page Break in the middle in Draft view.

Inserting and Formatting Page Numbers

If the only information you want to appear in a header or footer is the page number, you can insert it by clicking the Page Number button in the Header & Footer group on the Insert tab. In the Page Number gallery, you can select a page number that is positioned at the top or bottom of the page and aligned in various ways with formatting that ranges from simple to fairly fancy. You can also position the page number in the margin at the side of the page. If you want to change the style of existing page numbers, you can do so by clicking the Page Number button again and making a different selection from the Top Of Page, Bottom Of Page, or Page Margins options.

If you want to use a numbering scheme other than Arabic numerals, number pages by chapter, or control the starting number, you can do so by following these steps:

  • On the Insert tab, in the Header & Footer group, click the Page Number button, and then click Format Page Numbers. The Page Number Format dialog box opens.
  • Click the Number format arrow, and then in the list, click the number format you want.
  • Select any other options you want to apply, and then click OK.

As you edit the text in a document, Word changes the location of the soft page breaks but not of any manual page breaks you might have inserted.

You can control whether page breaks leave widows and orphans individual lines that appear on a different page from their paragraphs. A widow is the last line of a paragraph at the top of a page, and an orphan as the first line of a paragraph at the bottom of a page. These single lines of text can make a document hard to read, so by default Word specifies a two-line minimum. You can change the following options on the Line And Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box displayed when you click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher:

Widow/Orphan Control
This option controls whether Word will break a page with the last line of a paragraph by itself at the top of a page or the first line of a paragraph by itself at the bottom of a page. This option is turned on by default for all new documents.

Keep With Next
This option controls whether Word will break a page between the selected paragraph and the following paragraph.

Keep Lines Together
This option controls whether Word will break a page within a paragraph.

Page Break Before
This option controls whether Word will break a page before the selected paragraph.

You can apply the options in the Paragraph dialog box to individual paragraphs, or you can incorporate them into the styles you define for document elements such as headings.

In addition to page breaks, you can insert section breaks in your documents. A section break identifies a part of the document to which you can apply page settings, such as orientation or margins, that are different from those of the rest of the document. For example, you might want to turn a large table sideways. You insert a section break by clicking Breaks in the Page Setup group on the Page Layout tab. The following types of section breaks are available:

You can apply the options in the Paragraph dialog box to individual paragraphs, or you can incorporate them into the styles you define for document elements such as headings.

In addition to page breaks, you can insert section breaks in your documents. A section break identifies a part of the document to which you can apply page settings, such as orientation or margins, that are different from those of the rest of the document. For example, you might want to turn a large table sideways. You insert a section break by clicking Breaks in the Page Setup group on the Page Layout tab. The following types of section breaks are available:

Next Page
This break starts the following section on the next page.

Continuous
This break creates a new section without affecting page breaks.

Even Page
This break starts the following section on the next even-numbered page.

Odd Page
This break starts the following section on the next odd-numbered page.

A section break is not displayed in Print Layout view unless non-printing characters are turned on, in which case it appears as a double-dotted line from the preceding paragraph mark to the margin. In Draft view, a section break appears as a double-dotted line across the page. In both cases, the words Section Break and the type of section break appear in the middle of the line.

To remove a page or section break, click to the left of the break and then press the Delete key.

In this section, you will insert page and section breaks, and ensure that the pages break in logical places.

  1. Scroll through the document, noticing any awkward page breaks, such as a section or list that starts close to the bottom of a page.
  2. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click the Select button, and then click Select All.
  3. Click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher, and then in the Paragraph dialog box, click the Line and Page Breaks tab.
  4. Select the Widow/Orphan control and Keep lines together check boxes and clear all the other check boxes by clicking them twice, and then click OK. These settings ensure that all the lines of text in each paragraph appear on the same page.
  5. Scroll the document, and click to the left of the heading where you want page break.
  6. On the Insert tab, in the Pages group, click the Page Break button. Word breaks the page and moves the heading and the following text to the next page.
  7. Scroll down the document, select the heading and the following two steps, and then on the Home tab, click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher.
  8. On the Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box, select the Keep with next check box, and then click OK. Word moves the procedure to the next page.
  9. Click to the left of the heading toward the end of the document.
  10. On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click the Breaks button, and then under Section Breaks, click Next Page. A double dotted line with the words Section Break (Next Page) appears on the page before the section break.
  11. Click anywhere in the heading of the newly defined section, and on the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click the Margins button. Then in the Margins gallery, click Wide. The text in the new section moves to the right between margins that are wider than the rest of the document.
  12. On the Insert tab, in the Header & Footer group, click the Header button, and then click Edit Header. Because the Link To Previous and Different First Page options are turned on, the header for the first page of the new section is the same as the first page of the document.
  13. On the Design tab, in the Options group, clear the Different First Page check box. Now the Link To Previous option causes the header text from Pages 2 through 9 of the document to be repeated for this section.
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