How to Delete Unwanted Pages in Word [4 Easy Ways]

Unintentional blank pages within Microsoft Word detract from the display of professionalism.

Are you looking for ways to delete a blank page in Microsoft Word? If so, Then you have landed on the right page. To maintain a professional look in your Word document, it’s crucial to deal with blank and excess pages.

This page will cover methods to delete the bank page in Microsoft Word. You can pick the method which will best suit you.

There are various reasons why Blank pages are created, such as by pressing Enter button too many times (hard returns), manual page breaks, section breaks, paragraph formatting, etc. Knowing how and why the blank page is created will help you to get rid of them easily.

Let’s explore the easy ways to delete blank pages from Microsoft Word.

Page Break and a Blank Page

Page breaks or section breaks in Microsoft Word are used to indicate the position where a new page or section should start. A manually inserted page break or section break may accidentally result in the creation of an unnecessary blank page within your document.

If you want to remove a blank page created accidentally by inserting breaks, then the best method to start is by displaying paragraph marks.

• To display paragraph marks:
• Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
• Click the symbol (¶) Show/Hide in the Paragraph group as shown in the below image:

By performing this action, the whole document will be filled with the symbol (¶), indicating everywhere the page break or section break has been inserted in the document.

Deleting the blank page inserted through a page break

As explained above, Click the symbol (¶) Show/Hide in the Paragraph group, and you will see the page break and blank page in your document if it is inserted as shown below.

• Place the cursor at the start of the page break
• Press delete on your keyboard
• The particular page break and a blank page will be removed from your page.

If you have multiple page breaks in your document, you need to repeat this procedure to eliminate the blank page.

Deleting the Blank Page Inserted Through the Section Break

Let’s see how to delete the blank page created due to unnecessary section breaks.

• To view the section breaks in your document, Click the Home tab in the Ribbon and ensure to click the symbol “¶ “(Show/Hide) in the Paragraph group as stated above.
• After selecting the Show/Hide option, the section breaks will appear if it is inserted as shown below:
• Place the cursor at the start of the section break and press delete on your keyboard. The particular section break and a blank page will be removed from your page.

If you have multiple section breaks in your document, you need to repeat this procedure to eliminate a blank page.

Note: If you delete a section break, margins, page orientation, and headers and footers may change.

Deleting the Blank Page Inserted Through Navigation Pane

One of the easiest ways to view and delete blank pages in Microsoft Word is Navigation Pane.

• To delete blank pages using Navigation Pane
• Click the View tab in the Ribbon
• Select or check Navigation Pane in the Show group as shown below:

• After selecting the Navigation Pane, a window will appear on the left with 3 options –Headings, Pages, and Results.
• Select the Pages option to display all the pages in the document, as shown below:

Select the blank page from the thumbnail which you want to delete and press delete on your keyboard, and the unwanted bank page will be deleted from your document.

Delete a Blank Page by Removing Paragraph Formatting

Additional pages may also result from the formatting of paragraphs.

If you see a blank page that is not due to extra hard returns, a manual page break, or a section break with the help of Show/Hide ¶ on, then it may be due to paragraph formatting.

To get rid of blank pages created due to paragraph formatting, let’s follow the below steps:

Select the “Home” tab in the Ribbon, open the Paragraph dialog box launcher in the bottom right corner of the Paragraph group, select Line and Page Breaks tab in a dialog box as shown below, and check if any of the three pagination options are selected.

• Page break before – inserts a page break before a paragraph.
• Keep with next – prevents a page break between the current and following paragraphs.
• Keep lines together – prevents a page break within a paragraph.

If you see any of these options selected, then untick the option that is causing the unwanted blank page to appear.

Final Words

There are several instances in which users may encounter unintentional blank or unwanted pages in Microsoft documents. To remove them, it is important for users to understand the causes and origins of these occurrences. By doing so, they can easily and quickly eliminate these blank pages or unwanted pages without any difficulties.

The above-mentioned simple ways will be helpful for you to delete unwanted pages in Microsoft Word.

Next, check out how to add a signature in a Word document.