Create documents that break in all the right places

Terms like soft page break, hard page break, next page section break, and odd page section break can make your head spin. Worse yet, they can lead you to choose back-door formatting options (such as repeated hard returns) when you know there must be a more logical approach to solving your problem. In this article, we’ll help you brush up on your knowledge of breaks, and we’ll help you decide the best method for breaking up your document’s pages, columns, and formatting.

Basic page breaks
There are two types of basic page breaks: automatic page breaks and manual page breaks. Both break types are easy to work with, and the effects of each are straightforward.

Automatic page breaks
Word inserts automatic (or soft) page breaks automatically as you fill each page and begin another page. The location of an automatic page break adjusts and readjusts automatically as you revise your document.

You can see where pages break in Print Layout view, Print Preview, and Normal view:

• In Normal view, an automatic page break appears as a single dotted line across the page.
• In Print Layout (or Page Layout) view and Print Preview mode, automatic page breaks are indicated by the graphical representations of entire pages.

Manual page breaks
Although Word’s automatic page breaks are handy, you’ll sometimes want to begin a new page before the current page is full. To do so, insert a manual page break. Use manual page breaks when you want to prevent text or tables from breaking across pages.
To insert a manual page break:

1. Select Insert Break from the menu bar to open the Break dialog box.
2. Select the Page Break option button, and then click OK. As an alternative, you can also add a manual page break simply by pressing [Ctrl][Enter] (this isn’t available on the Mac).

How manual page breaks appear:

• In Normal view, manual page breaks appear as dotted lines marked Page Break.
• In Print Layout (or Page Layout) view and Print Preview mode, manual page breaks are indicated by the graphical representations of entire pages.

Section breaks
Section breaks divide a document into smaller pieces, or sections, for formatting and page layout purposes. By dividing a document into sections, you can isolate page formatting to a portion of your document instead of the whole document. When you use page breaks, you can vary elements such as margins, page orientation, headers and footers, page number sequence, and document protection.

To insert a section break:

1. Select Insert Break from the menu bar to open the Break dialog box.
2. Select the desired break type from the Section Break Types area and click OK.

Section breaks are displayed in Normal view. You can also see them in Print Layout view if you select the Show/Hide button on the Standard toolbar. Section breaks are represented in your document as a double dotted line that contains the name of the section break applied.

Next, let’s take a closer look at how each type of section break works.

Next page section breaks
A next page section break inserts a section break at the insertion point and moves everything that follows to a new section beginning on the following page. A next page section break is different from a manual page break because it classifies the document portions both before and after the break as sections. When you use next page section breaks, you can apply specialized page formatting to each section. When you use manual page breaks, you cannot.

Tip:
If you’re applying changes to your document in the Page Setup dialog box, you can insert a next page section break on the fly by selecting This Point Forward from the Apply To dropdown list. When you click OK, Word inserts a next page section break at the insertion point and applies your changes to the document text following the section break.

Continuous section breaks
You can use continuous section breaks to divide your document into sections without including page breaks. This way, you have the freedom to allow your documents’ pages to break automatically as necessary, but you still have the power to apply isolated formatting to single sections in your document. Continuous section breaks are particularly handy when you want to use different numbers of columns on the same page, as with a flyer or a newsletter.

Even page and odd page section breaks
Even page and odd page section breaks work much the same as next page section breaks. Each inserts a section break at the insertion point and begins a new section. However, instead of beginning the new section on the next page, as the next page section break does, even page and odd page section breaks begin the new section on the next even- or odd-numbered page, respectively.

For example, if you insert an odd page section break on page 3 of your document, Word inserts a section break and begins the new section on page 5. Even page and odd page section breaks are useful when your document contains chapters and you want each new chapter to begin on either an even- or an odd-numbered page.

Adapt for Word 2007
In Word 2007, you can access any of the page breaks we discuss in this article through the Page Layout ribbon. In the Page Setup area, click the Breaks button and choose from the list of possible page and section breaks. You can also quickly insert a page break from the Insert ribbon. In the Pages section, click the Page Break button to immediately insert a page break.

Column breaks
Column breaks are special tools that enable you to control where to end a column in a multi-column document.

To insert a column break:

1. Select Insert Break from the menu bar.
2. Select the Column Break option button, and then click OK.

When you insert a column break, Word ends the column and moves all the text that follows to the next column. Column breaks are useful tools for fixing uneven columns. They’re denoted in Normal view and Print Layout (or Page Layout) view with a single dotted line and the words Column Break.

Text Wrapping breaks
Text Wrapping breaks are much like column breaks, except that they break lines of text instead of columns of text. Text wrapping breaks are available in all versions of Word 2000 and later except on the Mac.

To insert a Text Wrapping break:

1. Select Insert Break from the menu bar.
2. Select the Text Wrapping Break option in the Break dialog box and click OK.

Word denotes a text wrapping break by an arrow at the end of the line in Normal view and Print Layout (or Page Layout) view, and it begins the text that follows on a new line.

Conditional break techniques
The options available in the Break dialog box aren’t the end of the line when it comes to creative page breaking. You can also insert page breaks using the Line And Page Breaks property sheet.

To use the Line And Page Breaks property sheet:

1. Select Format Paragraph from the menu bar.
2. Click on the Line And Page Breaks tab.
3. Make the selections you’d like and click OK to apply the changes.

Here are the four features on the Line And Page Breaks sheet that you can use to control where Word places automatic page breaks as you type:

• Widow/Orphan Control. This feature prevents Word from printing the last line of a paragraph at the top of a page or the first line of a paragraph at the bottom of a page. Instead, Word adjusts the placement of automatic page breaks to allow at least two lines of a paragraph to appear at the top or bottom of a page.
• Keep Lines Together. This feature prevents Word from inserting a page break in the middle of a paragraph.
• Keep With Next. This feature prevents Word from inserting a page break between the selected paragraph and the paragraph that follows it.
• Page Break Before. This feature tells Word to insert a manual page break before the selected paragraph, ensuring that it begins on a new page.

Related Courses

• Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 & 2007 New Features
• 4008 Building Better Microsoft Office Word 2003 Documents in Less Time

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