To display a section break symbol, click Show/Hide in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. To delete a section break, click the symbol and press Delete. Doing so has repercussions, however, Word will apply the next section's formatting to the section preceding the section break. This behavior confuses users.
Word allows you to format your documents on three general levels: sections, paragraphs, and characters. Of the three, section formatting is often the most confusing formatting for people to understand. Other issues of WordTips detail how you can insert section breaks and apply section formatting. If you have worked with sections before, you already know that if you delete a section break, the text before the break then adopts the section formatting characteristics of the section after the break.
This may be what you want, but it can also be a pain if you want to delete the final section break in a document and you don't want the previous text to lose its section formatting. Unfortunately, there is no intrinsic way to delete section breaks and maintain the formatting represented by that break. There is a workaround you can use, however:.
Place the insertion point at the end of the document, just after the final section break. If the section break just before the insertion point is a Continuous section break, press Ctrl+Enter to insert a page break.
Choose Header and Footer from the View menu. Word displays the Header and Footer dialog box. Make sure the Same As Previous control is selected for both the header and footer. This ensures that the final section in the document has the same header and footer as the section just before it. Close the Header and Footer dialog box. Place the insertion point just before the final section break. Choose Page Setup from the File menu.
Word displays the Page Setup dialog box. (See Figure 1.) Figure 1. The Page Setup dialog box.
Immediately press Enter or click on OK. Place the insertion point just after the final section break. Word applies to the last section the Page Setup formatting that you accepted in step 8 for the next-to-last last section.
If there are no differences in column formatting between the two final sections, you can skip to step 17. Place the insertion point just before the final section break. Choose Columns from the Format menu.
Word displays the Columns dialog box. (See Figure 2.) Figure 2. The Columns dialog box. Immediately press Enter or click on OK. Place the insertion point just after the final section break. Word applies to the last section the column formatting that you accepted in step 14 for the next-to-las last section. Select and delete the final section break.
Select and delete the page break you inserted in step 2. For more information on this and other issues relating to section breaks, visit this page at the.
This method will guide you to show all paragraph marks and hidden formatting symbols in the Word document, and then manually delete the specified section break easily. See the following steps: 1. Click Home ( Show/Hide Editing Marks) to show all paragraph marks and hidden formatting symbols in current document. Place the cursor before the specified section break, and then press the Delete key to remove it. See screenshot: 3. For removing more section breaks, please repeat above Step 2.
Remove all section breaks with Find and Replace feature in Word. You can also remove all section breaks from current Word document with the Find and Replace feature in Word. Please do as follows: 1. Click Home Replace (or press Ctrl + H keys simultaneously) to open the Find and Replace dialog box. See screenshot: 2. In the coming Find and Replace dialog box, please (1) type ^b in the Find what box, (2) type nothing in the Replace with box, and then (3) click the Replace All button. See screenshot: 3.
A Microsoft Word dialog box pops out and tells you how many section breaks it has deleted. Please click the OK button to close it. Close the Find and Replace dialog box. So far, all section breaks have been removed from current document already. Remove all section breaks using VBA.
Apart from above Find and Replace feature, you can also quickly remove all section breaks from current document with VBA in Word. Please do as follows: 1. Press Alt + F11 keys together to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Application window; 2. Click Insert Module, and then paste the following VBA codes in the new module window. VBA: remove all section breaks in Word Sub DeleSectionBreaks Selection.Find.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting With Selection.Find.Text = '^b'.Replacement.Text = '.Forward = True.Wrap = wdFindContinue.Format = False.MatchCase = False.MatchWholeWord = False.MatchByte = False.MatchAllWordForms = False.MatchSoundsLike = False.MatchWildcards = False.MatchFuzzy = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll End Sub 3. Then click Run button or press F5 key to run the code. And then the section breaks will be removed in bulk at once.
Remove all section breaks with Kutools for Word. If you have Kutools for Word installed, you can quickly remove all section breaks from current document in bulk with only one click by its Remove Section Breaks feature. Please do as follows: is a handy add-in to ease your work and enhance your ability of processing word document. Free Trial for 45 days! Click Kutools Breaks Remove Section Breaks. See screenshot: And then a dialog box comes out to ask for your reconfirming, Please click the Yes button to go ahead. Now all section breaks are deleted from current document in bulk immediately.
Note: This Remove Section Breaks feature also supports to delete all section breaks from selection: (1) select the part where you will remove section breaks, and (2) click Kutools Breaks Remove Section Breaks.