If you’re a Microsoft Word user, there will more than likely be times when you want to delete a page from your Word document. Your approach will largely depend on how the page was added in the first place.
Whether you want to remove a blank page or delete pages full of content, there are several ways to remove an unwanted page in Word.
Here are 5 ways to delete pages in Microsoft Word.
1) Delete a Page and Its Associated Content
You can delete unwanted pages by dragging to select all of the content on the page and pressing delete.
- Navigate to the page you’d like to remove by scrolling or by pressing Ctrl + G, typing a page number into the Enter page number box, and clicking Go To then Close.
- Drag to select all content on the page.
- Press Delete.
2) Delete a Blank Page by Removing a Manual Page Break
Microsoft Word lets you manually insert a page break at any point in a document. It is helpful to display non-printing characters when you want to remove a manual page break.
- Click the Show All button in the Home > Paragraph group to display paragraph marks.
- Click to the left of the page break you’d like to remove.
- Press Delete.
3) Delete a Page by Removing a Section Break
We talked about removing section breaks in another blog article and, since section breaks can be used to add page breaks as well, it’s a topic we’ll cover here as well.
As with a manual page break, it is helpful to display non-printing characters when deleting a section break.
- Click the Show All button in the Home > Paragraph group to display paragraph marks.
- Click to the left of the section break you’d like to remove.
- Press Delete.
4) Delete Unwanted Pages with the Navigation Pane
The Navigation Pane provides an intuitive interface for navigating within a Word document.
Here is how to delete pages using the Navigation Pane in Microsoft Word.
- Select the View tab on the Ribbon and verify that the Navigation Pane checkbox is selected in the Show group (or press Ctrl + F).
- Select Pages in the Navigation Pane to display thumbnails of the pages in your document.
- Click in the Navigation Pane to select an unwanted page then press Ctrl + G to display the Find and Replace dialog box. Type \page in the Enter page number box then click Go To and Close.
- Press Delete.
5) Delete an Unwanted Blank Page at the End of Your Word Document
Microsoft Word adds a paragraph mark at the end of your document that can’t be deleted. This situation can be particularly vexing if that final paragraph mark winds up on the last page of your Word document all by itself resulting in a blank page.
Here is the simplest way to delete an unwanted blank page at the end of your document.
- Press Ctrl + End to navigate to the end of your document.
- Press Backspace as many times as you need to to delete blank pages at the end of your Word document.
Delete Blank Pages When They’re Not Required
Unless you need blank pages in your document, they should be removed. Similarly, you should remove unnecessary section breaks and manual page breaks that don’t serve a specific purpose.
Your delete key is going to get quite a workout!