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How to Find and Remove Section Breaks

April 4th, 2008 | by Loren |

Here are a couple ways to get rid of section breaks. Keep in mind that by removing section breaks you can affect things like headers and footers, section-based page numbering, different margins or a different page orientation.

If You Know Where the Section Breaks Are

And there aren’t many of them.

  1. Turn on Show ¶. (Home tab, Paragraph group)
  2. Move the cursor directly next to the Section Break code.
  3. Delete to remove it.



If You Don’t Know Where The Section Breaks Are

Or there are lots of them.

  1. Turn on Show ¶.
  2. Push Ctrl + H (Find and Replace).
  3. Click the More>> button, then the Special button at the bottom.
  4. In the Special pop-out menu, click on Section Break, then the code (^b) will appear in the Find what: box.
  5. Leave the Replace with: blank.
  6. Click Find Next; the Section Break will be highlighted. Choose Replace to remove it or Find Next to go to the next Section Break.
  7. When done, close or Cancel out of the Find and Replace box, and turn off Show ¶.



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  1. 16 Responses to “How to Find and Remove Section Breaks”

  2. By Klik Klak on Nov 30, 2009 | Reply

    Thanks man,you saved my life!
    :) )))
    cheers!

  3. By Hugo on Nov 13, 2009 | Reply

    Tanks
    It would be nice to explain how do sections work:
    1. A section break stores the formatting (page setup, header/footers etc.) *of the preceding section*.
    2. The final paragraph of the document contains an invisible section break
    3. *When you delete a section break*, the properties stored in the section break are deleted, and the text which formerly preceded the section break takes on the properties stored *in the next section break*.
    4. A section break displays the “Continuous” or “Next Page” property of the following section!

  4. By Ian Evan Cook on Nov 3, 2009 | Reply

    This works up to a point however it applies the page formatting (portrait to landscape) and the headers/footers from the section being removed.
    I have a doc that needs the last page removed but that is a different section from the rest of the document and when I delete it it reformats the whole document – changing orientation and headers and footers to match those in the section to be deleted. the headers and footers are not linked…help!

  5. By Gábor on Sep 29, 2009 | Reply

    Zach — you da man!!! Thanks.

  6. By Mustafa Islami on Sep 22, 2009 | Reply

    Tanks.

  7. By Loren on Sep 11, 2009 | Reply

    Hi Kurt – I don’t know of a way to make Find/Replace make a distinction between the types of section breaks you might have in a document…but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.

  8. By Kurt on Sep 11, 2009 | Reply

    Is there a way to Find and Replace other section breaks like continuous and next page?

  9. By Zach on Sep 10, 2009 | Reply

    I had the problem of losing all footers in my doc when I deleted a section break near the end of my doc. The problem is that you’ve linked your header/footer from one section to another. The solution is to go to the page where the section break is set, click to open the footer (or header, if that’s the case). Then on the menu bar in the Navigation section, de-select “Link to previous section”. Do this wherever you’ve linked sections. Close the menu and then remove the section break(s). Your header/footers should appear in the correct sequence from the start of your doc.

  10. By Sandra on Jul 23, 2009 | Reply

    My problem with removing the section break by deleting it as it also deletes my headers. Any ideas why?

  11. By Debbie on Jul 12, 2009 | Reply

    THANK YOU!!!! I have spent three days and many hours on this problem. I converted a sewing machine manual from PDF into a Word document. I wanted to edit it and remove the Spanish and leave only the English. I could not move the text because of all the column and page breaks. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

  12. By Evelyn on Feb 25, 2009 | Reply

    I love the find and replace tip. I’ve also found it helpful to select all text and change the font color to white. That leaves only the formatting marks visible on the page and section breaks are easier to see.

    Change back to black – done!

  13. By Brian Daubney on Jan 26, 2009 | Reply

    How do I get tif files inserted into Word 7 documents to display correctly? I just get a small band of the picture sometimes

  14. By Brian Daubney on Jan 16, 2009 | Reply

    Sorry, I had!

  15. By Brian Daubney on Jan 16, 2009 | Reply

    What an excellent site! The simplest of explanations to the complex Word 7 problems that bedevil so many of us in Vista. I have just deleted my section breaks – now for the page numbers (in the rong order!) that will not go away. Thank you so much.

  16. By Loren on Oct 15, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Rick – section breaks don’t always fully display, usually when they are inserted at the text that stops close to the right margin. What you might see is a line of colons (like ¶::::), but not the Section Break text. Could they be out of sight? If that doesn’t work, try switching to Draft view (next to the % sign by Zoom), they may be easier to see there.
    Comment back if they still don’t show. Thanks and good luck!

  17. By Rick on Oct 15, 2008 | Reply

    When I click on the Show/Hide icon in Word 2007 (in Print Layout Mode), section breaks are not displayed. How do I display them in Print Layout Mode?

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