Or: Why Word appears to behave so illogically when you delete or move a section break
Or: How to preserve section formatting when pasting between documents

Then, choose the appropriate option from the Breaks option in the Page Setup group: Next Page: Starts the new section on the next page. Continuous: Starts the new section on the same page. Even Page: Starts the new section on the next even-numbered page. Odd Page: Starts the new section on the next odd-numbered page. Insert a manual page break anytime you want to start a new page in your document. You can't remove the page breaks that Word automatically inserts, but you can remove manual page breaks from your document. 365 Word for Office 365 for Mac Word for the web Word 2019 Word 2019 for Mac Word 2016 Word 2013 Word 2010 Word 2016 for Mac Word for.

Article contributed by Dave Rado

How Word sections work

Section breaks store the following information:

1. The Headers and Footers (and their properties) for the section.
2. The Page Setup for the section.
3. The Columns settings for the section.

When you delete a section break, or move an entire section to another part ofthe document, you get what seem to be very strange results. For instance,deleting a Continuous section break causes the preceding Next Page section breakto convert to a Continuous one, or deleting a section break causes animportant Header to disappear from the document, or causes the entire documentto become landscape.

I agree it's confusing, but it's “bydesign”. These are therules to remember:

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1. A section break stores the formatting (page setup, header/footers etc.) of the preceding section.
2. The final paragraph of the document contains an invisible section break.
3. When you delete a section break, the properties stored in the section break are deleted, and the text which formerly preceded the section break takes on the properties stored in the next section break.
4. A section break displays the “Continuous” or “Next Page” property of the following section!

So let's say you have 3 sections.

• Section 1 has “Section Start Continuous” defined under Page Setup. The properties of section 1 are stored in the first section break. So the section break at the end of Section 1 stores the information “Section Start Continuous”.
• Section 2 has “Section Start Next Page” defined under Page Setup. So the section break at the end of Section 1 displays the information “Section Break Next Page”. Meanwhile the section break at the end of section 2 stores the information “Section Start Next Page”.
• Section 3 has “Section Start Continuous” defined under Page Setup. So the section break at the end of Section 2 displays the information “Section Break Continuous” and the invisible section break at the end of the document stores the information “Section Start Continuous”.

Now if you delete the second section break, the text which preceded it willtake on the formatting of the next section (formerly Section 3, now Section 2),which has “Section StartContinuous” defined. Sothe first section break will now display “SectionBreak Continuous” whereasbefore it displayed “SectionBreak Next Page”.

Preserving section formatting when pasting between documents

The secret to preserving Headers and Footers, Next Page information, etc. whencopying and pasting between documents is to temporarily add a section break at theend of the text you are going to paste or insert.

So for example, Instead of:

Some text
Some text
Some text

.. add an extra section break temporarily, so it's like this:

Some text
Some text
Some text

Copy up to and including the temporary section break, which thus preserves thesection formatting of the text preceding it. Now paste into the other document. Closethe first document without saving.

If the target document is completely blank, however, see also: How is it possible to copy an entire document into another document without bringing across the header and footer?

If you really want to delete the temporary section break ..

Unfortunately,you can't then delete the “temporary”section break(s) from the document you pasted into, or you'll still lose theformatting. This can sometimes lead to a section break being the next-to-lastcharacter in the document, which can be awkward.

If you want to get rid of it,you first have to make sure that the section formatting of the final section isidentical to that of the preceding one. To do this:

1. Go to the very end of the document, and go into the final section's header. If it's a continuous section break, you will first need to temporarily create a page break at the end of the document, so that you don't go into the previous section's Header.
2. Make sure that both the Header and Footer are set to “Same as Previous”. If they aren't, use the Header/Footer toolbar to set it to this. Then return to the main document.
3. Go to the penultimate section, select File + Page Setup.. and press Return. (This makes Word “Remember” all the settings in the dialog).
4. Go to the final section and press F4 (repeat last command). This applies the “remembered” settings to the final section.
5. If there are differences in the column formatting between the two sections, you'll also need to use the F4 trick with the Format + Columns.. dialog.
6. You can now safely delete the final section break (and the manual page break, if you inserted one).

Preserving section formatting when using Insert + File

The rules section breaks follow when using Insert + File are even moreAlice-in-Wonderland than elsewhere; but the fix is straightforward: the filesyou plan to insert must contain a continuous section break at the start ofthe document, as wellas at the end. (Alternatively, just stick to copy & paste, which works morelogically).

If you're using Insert + File, Word insertsthe saved version of the document, so you would need to save the file you're inserting, having inserted the extra section breaks, in order to havethe temporary section breaks included when the file is inserted. You can, if youwant, subsequently deletethe temporary breaks and save the file again.

Here is some information that a source of mineat Microsoft found in the Office 2000 bug database regarding this

I wrote back to him: “Theworkaround works, but I'm still trying to get my headaround it! <g>”. Hereplied: “Don'tbother trying to figure out the reasoning. I'm of the opinion that it reallyshould work the way that you were originally trying to do it.There's just no way of getting a program manager to agree with me and change itnow.. :-)”

The problem you will get if you don't use this fix can be reproducedas follows:

1. Create a new document (Doc1) and add a next page section break.
2. Set up section 1 with 1' margins and section 2 with 2' margins. Save and
   close.
3. Create a second new document (Doc2) and give it 3' margins.
4. Select Insert + File, and insert Doc1 into Doc2.

What one would expect to get is as follows:

1. The final paragraph mark of Doc2 originally contains section formatting
   of 3' margins, so the final section of Doc2 should still have 3' margins
   following the InsertFile.
2. The section break inserted into Doc2 from Doc1 contains the section
   formatting of 1' margins, so section 1 following the insertion should have
   1' margins.

In fact, after inserting Doc2 into Doc1, section 2 has 2' margins, andsection 1 has 3' margins.

Inserting a section break at the end of Doc1 doesn't help. What happens thenis that after inserting Doc1 into Doc2, section 1 has 3' margins, section 2has 2' margins, and section 3 has 2' margins.

In other words, whatever you do, the section formatting of section 1 in Doc1is lost when inserted into Doc2.

If you insert a section break into Doc2 prior to inserting Doc1, it makesno difference – the section formatting of Section 1 is lost whatever you do. Andyou don't get these problems if you copy and paste.

As previously mentioned, theonly fix is to insert a continuous section break at the start ofthe document you want to insert.

If the target document is completely blank, however, see also: How is it possible to copy an entire document into another document without bringing across the header and footer?

Merging sections

If you want to merge two contiguous sections within a document, the samelogic applies as described above under HowWord sections work; with the following implications:

1. If you want the section formatting of the second section to take precedence, no problem: it will, automatically.
2. If you want the section formatting of the first section to take precedence, and if the second section is followed by a section break (that is, if the document contains three or more sections), just select the first section break, Edit + Cut, and, immediately before the next section break, select Edit + Paste. Then delete the next section break, leaving the one you just pasted in place. What was previously the first section's section break has now become the merged section's section break.
3. If you want the section formatting of the first section to take precedence, and if the document only contains two sections, you can either cut the section break and paste it into an empty paragraph at the very end of the document (but then you're stuck with a redundant section break); or make sure that the section formatting of the final section isidentical to that of the preceding one, by using the shortcuts described under If you really want to delete the temporary section break .. You can then safely delete the section break.