Pressing Enter repeatedly to push text onto the next page breaks the moment you edit anything above it. A proper page break keeps your layout intact.
Step by step
- Place the cursor where you want the new page to start.
- Press Ctrl+Enter.
- Everything after the cursor moves to the top of a new page.
Tips & troubleshooting
- Press Ctrl+Shift+8 to show formatting marks and see (and delete) existing page breaks.
- For headings that should always start a new page, use the Page break before setting in Paragraph options instead.
Why a page break beats pressing Enter
Empty paragraphs are fragile. Add a sentence on page one and every heading you pushed down with Enter slides out of position; change the font or the printer and it happens again. A page break is a single instruction that says the next text starts on a new page, so it holds however the content above it changes.
Other ways to insert a page break
- Insert tab: click Page Break in the Pages group.
- Layout tab: click Breaks, then Page.
- Blank Page on the Insert tab adds two breaks at once, leaving an empty page between them. Use it for a page you intend to fill later.
Page break or section break?
A page break only moves text to the next page. Everything else carries on unchanged: margins, headers, footers, page numbering and orientation.
A section break (Layout, Breaks, Next Page) also starts a new page, but it lets the pages after it be set up differently. Use one when a single landscape page has to sit inside a portrait report, when page numbers should restart, or when a chapter needs its own header.
A third kind is the column break, Ctrl+Shift+Enter, which moves text to the top of the next column in a multi-column layout.
Remove a page break
Press Ctrl+Shift+8 to show formatting marks. A manual break appears as a dotted line labelled Page Break. Click just before the line, press Delete, then press Ctrl+Shift+8 again to hide the marks.
If there is no such line where the page ends, Word has simply run out of room and started a new page by itself. That automatic break can't be deleted; change the content, the margins or the settings below instead.
Let Word manage breaks for you
For long documents, a setting on the paragraph is more reliable than breaks typed by hand. Select the paragraph, open the Paragraph dialog (the small arrow in the corner of the Paragraph group) and go to the Line and Page Breaks tab.
- Page break before: the paragraph always starts a new page. Add it to your Heading 1 style and every chapter starts on a fresh page automatically.
- Keep with next: stops a heading being left alone at the foot of a page.
- Keep lines together: stops a paragraph being split across two pages.
On a Mac and in Word for the web
In Word for Mac the shortcut is Cmd+Return. In Word for the web, use Page Break on the Insert tab.