Breaks

Computer Tips 4 Writers ~ A tutorial from Ginger Edwards 

 

Breaks can be inserted to divide a document into pages, sections, or columns. Here’s how to insert a break, delete a break and how to keep particular lines or paragraphs together on a page.

 

Tip: You can force a page break before a specific paragraph, so that a chapter title always starts on a new page.

  

Inserting a Page Break

To force a page break at a specific location, you can insert a manual page break. Place the insertion point where the new page is to begin. From the Insert menu, choose Break and Page break, OR press Ctrl + Enter. Word inserts a manual page break. 

 

Inserting Section Breaks

Section breaks are used to format part of a document differently than the rest.

 

In Section break types, select the option that describes where you want the new section to begin.

 

1. Next page inserts a section break, breaks the page, and starts the new section on the next page.

 

2. Continuous inserts a section break and starts the new section on the same page.

 

3. Odd page or Even page inserts a section break and starts the new section on the next odd-numbered or even-numbered page.

 

4. Choose OK.

 

Once the section break is inserted, you can format that particular section however you choose. To return to the previous format or create a new one, another section break would need to be added. For example, if you want landscape page orientation for a chart in the middle of a document as above, you would also need to insert a section break after the chart and return to portrait orientation in Page setup for the rest of the document.

 

 

Deleting a Break

In Normal view:  

Select the break by clicking on it. Press the Delete key.

 

In Print layout view:  

1. Click the Show/Hide button.  

 

2. Select (highlight) the break

 

3. Press the Delete key.

 

Tip: When you delete a section break, you delete the section formatting for the text above it. That text becomes part of the following section, and it assumes the formatting of that section.

 

Keeping Things Together

You can prevent a page break from occurring within a paragraph or table row, or between two paragraphs, such as a heading and the following paragraph.

 

To keep lines or paragraphs together on a page:

1. Select (highlight) the paragraph or paragraphs.

 

2. From the Format menu, choose Paragraph for the Paragraph dialog box. Select the Line and Page Breaks tab, as shown below.

 

 1. To keep lines together, select the Keep lines together check box.

 

2. To keep paragraphs together, select the Keep with next check box.

 

3. Click OK.

  

Tip: What is Widow/Orphan control? By leaving this box checked, it prevents Word from leaving the last line of a paragraph by itself at the top of a page (widow), or the first line of a paragraph by itself at the bottom of a page (orphan). 

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