Forum Discussion
Simply cannot delete a section break. It is impossible. Cannot be done. Please prove me wrong.
So I was introduced to section breaks as a means of getting page numbering up-to-spec for book I've written (roman. numerals in the front material, arabic numerals in the book itself). I'm using the latest version of Word (16.8?) on Mac.
To my horror, I've found that it is impossible to delete section breaks once they're in my document. I have spend an entire day in Google on this subject, and every single suggestion fails. So I have enabled showing markup, so I can see page breaks, section breaks, paragraphs
I cannot select a section break. Word will not allow that. So I can't select and delete it.
I cannot put the cursor after a section break and then hit the delete button as many suggest. Word will not allow the cursor to be placed after a section break.
Putting the cursor before the section break, as other articles recommend, is just wrong. All you're doing there is deleting text before the section break.
Why is this so hard? I've lost a whole day on something that should be simple. In the screenshot from my document below, The section break simply cannot be touched.
43 Replies
I finally found that if there is a table on the next page of the section break then they reacted then you can never delete it... Cutting the table and deleting the section break and pasting the table back work for me
for anyone who facing this problem you should try Find and Replace by searching for ^b (section break) and replacing it with nothing. it's worked for me.
thanks, this worked!
After screaming at the computer to die and having tried every option from Word and Google to no avail, I finally found one thing that worked but also destroyed all formatting as a result. I pressed enter/return before the section break (next page), moved my cursor to the left margin, and then highlighted the section break and deleted it. Both header and footer were removed along with all formatting of paragraphs. At that point, I did not give a flying foopity-foo because I had successfully removed the dad-blasted section break. I simply reformatted, which definitely took less time than trying to fix something so stupidly simple and yet so irritatingly complicated. I swear, if I knew anything about programming and coding, I would create a better word processing software that would outstrip Microsoft and their stupid foopity-foo Word. Alas, I cannot and thus am relegated to continue screaming at my computer every time, and I do mean EVERY TIME, I sit down to write in Word.
Victoria, if you delete a section break, the section formatting (columns, paper size, orientation, margins, headers, footers & page numbers) from the subsequent section are applied to the section above. This is the opposite of what I would logically expect, but it's how Word has always worked. Thus, if you delete a section break and your headers & footers disappear, then those headers and footers simply weren't in the subsequent section and when you deleted the break, that formatting took over the previous section that existed before you removed the break. If I want to delete a section break and ensure that the headers/footers stay intact, I just make sure that that same section formatting is present in the section below before deleting the break. That's pretty easily done by going into the header of the subsequent section (before deleting the break) and clicking the LINK TO PREVIOUS button on the Header & Footer tab. That will cause the header for the subsequent section to match whatever is going on in the previous section. Do the same thing for the footer, and THEN delete the break. Hope that helps. The bigger question is how section breaks are creeping into your document if you didn't insert them yourself. They don't show up uninvited. They have to be manually added or copied/pasted in from another document. If you convert from PDF to Word using any of the main PDF programs like Acrobat, they will drop unwanted section breaks at the bottom of every page. The same is true if you allow Word to convert a document from WordPerfect. So it might be something in your workflow which is re-creating this issue.
Using Office 2019, none of the above solutions worked for me without compromising the column formatting on the prior page, but I was able to work this out by adding a page break before the break I wanted deleted and then highlighting and deleting both breaks at the same time.
The challenge with section breaks is that each section break stores the formatting of the section preceding the break. This includes page setup (page orientation, margins, etc.), newspaper columns, headers/footers. Any section break that you delete may result in loss of formatting. For "everything" about Word sections, have a look at https://wordmvp.com/FAQs/Formatting/WorkWithSections.htm .
Press the CTRL and you can select the section break then you can delete it.
This doesn't work for me sadly - using Word for Mac 2019 v16.78.3
This was so annoying for me, on a Mac you need to use the Command button and hold down instead of the control.
Someone at Microsoft want to tell me why the f*** something so simple is such a huge problem for so many people? I tried every single suggestion in this thread (and others) to absolutely no avail. Word is around 30 years old. how the HELL has this not been fixed?
So if anyone is NOT as incompetent as everyone at Microsoft and has an ACTUAL fix let me know!
I'm with you. Everytime I create a new doc. I go through this madness for hours until I finally figure it out. Then months later I can't remember how I did it and back to Google.
One thing I found is that you cannot put your cursor in front of the section break when you have Footer/Header on. You have to close them first and then you can access the line with the section break, etc.
I had the problem for a while in MS Word for Mac, but deep diving into other people chatting about it, I found a solution that worked for me. I put my cursor in front of the section break and typed a character next to it. It then allowed me to select that character along with the section break and delete both.
I had the same problem and that worked for me. Thanks! You saved my day (hours of trying to figure it out)
I would suggest asking a new question in the Answers forum with specific information about your problem. Word Questions
These are user-to-user support forums and no one at Microsoft who can change anything sees what is posted here. For that, use their feedback mechanisms.
- One solution that worked for me was that I copied the entire line of text where the section break occurs and then pasted it using the "Keep text only" Paste special option. This removed the section break on the Word document
That worked! Thank you.
- Ran into same issue. Tried rebooting, saving copy, I had "Track Changes" turned on. Once I turned that off I was able to delete Section Breaks.
On Mac, I had to turn on track changes. Only then did it allow me to do a Shift forward space and highlight the section break and delete it. Nothing else worked for me. I got the idea from NormMarq--but when I checked track changes was off, so I decided to turn it on and see what happened--so for some reason toggling that setting allowed it to be deleted.
This worked on Google Docs!! Thanks REA
Thank you so much NormMarq ! I have struggled for a long time trying to figure out how to delete section breaks and turning off Track Changes did the trick! Many thanks.
I figured out how to easily delete sections breaks and I couldn’t be happier.
First I showed paragraph symbols under Home > Show/Hide. Then I clicked right before a section break, hold Shift + right arrow to highlight the section break, then press delete. Voila!
Hope this works for some poor frustrated soul in the future. Cheers
SamHart, you are wizard! I followed your advice and found deleting the pesky section breaks easy. I held down the Shift key and hit the right arrow on my keyboard. This highlighted the section break and then hit delete. Thank you!
- Thank You! This should be the top comment!
In Word for Windows, do the following: Switch to Draft view (View tab > Draft) and display nonprinting characters (for example by pressing Ctrl+Shift+8). You should be able to select and Cut or Delete the section break.
P.S. If your document is protected in some way, the steps will be less straightforward. Also notice that limited versions of Word, such as the browser version, have limited support for section breaks and section formatting.
jukedudeMicrosoft
Yup, facing this problem in MS Word online... I used this program after a long period (4-5 yrs?) and it has become worse?
Lesson re-learnt, MS Word is not for me.The online program by Microsoft called "Word" is not coextensive with the desktop applications. It does not handle sections.
