When typing up a document in Word, users sometimes run into an issue where a blank page, for some reason, takes up residence in the middle or at the very end of their document. It is for this reason, and for a number of other reasons (such as being able to delete and entire unwanted page at a time) that Word users need to know how they can delete an entire page in Word at one time.
Deleting entire pages in Microsoft Word is quite simple – exactly as it should be. However, there are a number of different ways Word users can go about deleting pages in Microsoft’s uber-popular word processor, and the way that works for a specific user depends on multiple different factors, chief among which is how the page that needs to be deleted came into existence in the first place. The following are the most effective methods you can use to delete an entire page in Word 2010 to 2016:
Method 1: Use your Backspace key
This is perhaps the simplest method that can be used to delete an entire page in Word 2013. All you need to do is:
- Click on the very bottom-right corner of the page that you want to delete. Doing so will bring the text cursor to the very end of that page.
- Press the Backspace key on your keyboard and keep it pressed until everything on the target page is deleted. Once everything on the target page has been deleted, the page itself will also disappear.
Method 2: Delete the page using the Navigation Pane
Word 2013 comes with a feature named Navigation Pane that makes it quite easy for users to delete an entire page from a Word document at one time. To use the Navigation Pane to delete a page in Word 2013, you need to:
- Navigate to the View tab.
- In the Show section of the View tab, check the checkbox beside the Navigation Pane option. This will open up the Navigation Pane in the left corner of Microsoft Word.
- In the Navigation Pane, locate the page of the document you want to delete and click on it to select it.
- Press the Delete key on your keyboard, and the page will be deleted as soon as you do so.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 for any other pages of the same document that you want to delete.
Method 3: Adjust your Page Layout to delete the unwanted page(s)
If neither of the methods listed and described above have worked for you, you can also try to delete the unwanted page(s) of the document in question by adjusting it’s Page Layout. To do so, simply:
- Navigate to the Page Layout tab.
- Click on Margin to open up a dropdown menu.
- Click on Custom Margins… in the dropdown menu.
- Navigate to the Layout tab.
- Open the dropdown menu next to Section start: and click on New Page to select it.
- Click on OK.
Method 4: Enable paragraph symbols and delete whatever is on the target page
Microsoft Word users can have the word processor show them every single paragraph symbol and all other formatting symbols in a document, and you can use this to your advantage if you’re trying to delete a specific page of a document. You can enable this feature to see what’s on the target page and then delete everything that’s on there, consequently deleting the target page as well. To delete a page in Word 2013 using this method, you need to:
- Navigate to the Home tab.
- Click on the Show/Hide ¶ button to have Word display all the paragraph symbols and other formatting symbols in the document.
- Navigate to the page you want to delete.
- Check to see if there are any paragraph symbols (¶) or other formatting symbols on the page.
- If you find any paragraph symbols (¶) or other formatting symbols on the target page, simply select each of them one by one and delete them. Once all of the symbols have been deleted and there’s nothing left on the page, the page will be deleted as well.
Note: If you have a blank page that you can’t seem to get rid of in the very middle of your Word document, the blank page may be there because of a manual page break. With paragraph symbols (¶) or other formatting symbols shown, you will also be able to see manual page breaks, so all you need to do is locate the manual page break, select it and delete it, and the pesky unwanted blank page will also be deleted.
