How to Remove a Section Break in Word for Mac

Section breaks in Word can be beneficial when you want to structure your content better. However, once you press that “Page Break” button, you never get the opportunity to remove the break with a similar command. Luckily, if you need to learn how to remove a section break in Word for Mac, it’s quite easy and relies on section breaks still being a type of character, but one that simply isn’t displayed.

Method 1. How to Remove a Section Break in Word for Mac Manually

If your page ever ends unexpectedly and shifts to a new one, chances are you have a page break there, which is a character that Word doesn’t usually display on-screen. Once you make it visible, however, you can remove it just like any other character.

Step 1. Go to the “Paragraph” section in the “Home” tab and click on the pilcrow button (¶), which displays “Show/Hide.” Cmd + Shift + 8 or Cmd + * should work on all modern versions of the program.

Step 2. Section breaks are outlined with a dotted line and a text showing which type of break it is (continuous, page break, or next even/odd page).

Step 3. Place the cursor at the beginning of the break symbol (e.g., after the last period or the pilcrow that suggests moving to the next row), then hit “Shift + Right Arrow” to select the next symbol to the right, which will be the section break. You can also try clicking and dragging over the symbol, but it may produce mixed results.

Step 4. Hit “Delete.”

Step 5. Use the “Show/Hide” button again to check if the break is removed properly.

Method 2. How to Remove a Section Break in Word for Mac for the Entire Document

If you’ve added many section breaks (or don’t want to spend time catching them manually), you can use Find and Replace to remove them.

Step 1. Hit “Cmd + F” and then enter the “Find and Replace” menu.

Step 2. In the “Find” box, enter “^p” and leave the “Replace” box empty.

Step 3. Click on “Replace All” and you’ll get a confirmation on how many breaks were removed.

You can also use the character “^m” to remove manual section breaks or “^b^p” to also include the paragraph break afterward.

Method 3. Remove Section Breaks in Draft View

The traditional print layout makes some page breaks relatively difficult to notice when using “Show/Hide.” Switching viewing modes will make them easier to point out.

Step 1. Go to the “View” tab and select “Draft” in the “Views” section.

Step 2. Hit the “Show/Hide” button or shortcut (as in Method 1). This time, section breaks should cover the entire width of the screen and cleanly divide text.

Step 3. Remove any section breaks you need by selecting them and hitting “Delete.”

Step 4. Switch back to “Print Layout” if needed.

Louis Roundtree

As an avid gamer, I’ve run into my fair share of error codes and weird faults that have forced me to find fixes to problems I never anticipated. That gave me a passion for sharing those fixes with others so we can all game without feeling like our hardware is rebelling against us.