The section break feature in Word is very useful. It creates multiple sections so that you can format your document without affecting the rest of the text content. The most common use of this feature is to change the orientation of a single page while leaving the remaining part in the current orientation.
If you do not wish to keep section breaks in your Word documents, then you can remove it easily. However, most people end up ruining their document formatting during the process of removing section breaks.
If you are looking for a simple guide on how to remove a section in a Word document then you are at the right place. Below, you can go through the following methods applying which you can smoothly delete the section breaks in your Word document without affecting the formatting of your documents.
4 Methods to Quickly Remove All Section Breaks in Word Document
The guidance on ‘how to remove all section breaks in Word’ provide you with four kinds of methods to remove or delete section breaks while maintaining the document formatting.
For instance, you can remove one section break manually or remove all section breaks with the Find and Replace feature. Besides that, you can also take advantage of Visual Basic for Application (VBA) to successfully remove section breaks at once. Learn how to remove section break in ms word.
Method 1: Remove One Section Break Manually in Word
If you want to know how to remove section break in Word Document then learn this basic method. In this method, what you can do is to show hidden formatting symbols and paragraph marks in the Word document. Then, you can manually remove the section break. Let us know how to do that.
- First of all, open your document in Word and click on the Home tab located in the top menu bar.
- Next to this, click on
icon (Show/Hide Editing Marks) appears on the right. This will show you the hidden formatting symbols and all paragraph marks available in your document.
- Then, you need to place the cursor before the section break.
- After that, you can hit the Delete key in order to remove the section breaks. Make sure that you do not press the Backspace key.
If you want to remove more section breaks in the same then you need to follow the same steps as mentioned above in Method 1.
Method 2: Use Find and Replace Feature to Remove All Section Breaks
This method focuses on deleting the section breaks with the help of Find and Replace feature right in your Word document. Below are the following steps on how to remove section break in word 2007.
- To begin, click on the Home tab and go to the Replace button. You can also use Ctrl + H keys in order to open the Find and Replace dialog box.
- When the Find and Replace dialog box displays on your screen, you need to type ^b in the ‘Find what’ column and the remaining column (Replace with) should be blank.
- Once you are done, click on the Replace All option.
- After that, Microsoft Word dialog box appears while showing the number of deleted section breaks. You can click on the OK button and close the box.
In doing so, all the section breaks in your document will be removed smoothly at once.
Method 3: Remove All Section Breaks with VBA
To know how to remove section break in Word Document, try using VBA. In the third method, the section breaks in Word document can be removed using Visual Basic for Application (VBA) in Word. Let us know how to remove section break in word 2010, 2013, 2016.
- Firstly, you need to press Alt + F11 keys together in order to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Application window.
- Next to this, you can click the Insert and Module option.
- After that, you are required to copy the following VBA codes and paste them in the new Module window.
Sub DeleteAllSectionsInOneDoc()
With Selection
.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
With Selection.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Text = “^b”
.Replacement.Text = “”
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
End Sub
- Once you are done pasting the code then you can click on the Run button or directly press the F5 key in order to run the code.
After the code starts running, all the section breaks will be removed from your document at once.
Method 4: Delete All Section Breaks in Multiple Documents
This method is very similar to Method 3. All you need to run a macro and then you can easily remove section breaks. This can be the quickest way to delete section breaks in multiple documents. To do so, you can follow the steps mentioned below.
- First of all, you need to move all the documents (from which you want to remove sections breaks) in one folder.
- After this, you can install a macro and follow the steps mentioned in Method 3.
- Next to this, you can run this macro:-
Sub DeleteAllSectionBreaksInMultiDoc()
Dim StrFolder As String
Dim strFile As String
Dim objDoc As Document
Dim dlgFile As FileDialog
Set dlgFile = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogFolderPicker)
With dlgFile
If .Show = -1 Then
StrFolder = .SelectedItems(1) & “\”
Else
MsgBox “No folder is selected! Please select the target folder.”
Exit Sub
End If
End With
strFile = Dir(StrFolder & “*.docx”, vbNormal)
While strFile <> “”
Set objDoc = Documents.Open(FileName:=StrFolder & strFile)
With Selection
.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
With Selection.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Text = “^b”
.Replacement.Text = “”
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
objDoc.Save
objDoc.Close
strFile = Dir()
Wend
End Sub
- Through the Browse section, you can open the folder in which you moved all your documents and click on the Ok button to successfully remove sections in Word document.
Always Back Up Your Documents
It is natural to encounter issues with the software or computer. To prevent losing any data, you can back up your documents on a regular basis. If you have the backup then you can freely start the fix in Word documents.
Conclusion
If you want to know how to remove a section break in a Word Document then the above-mentioned guide will ease your problem. By performing the quick and easy methods, you can delete the section breaks while maintaining the formatting of your document.
The guidance on how to remove section break in Word Document will let you go through different kinds of methods such as removing the section breaks manually or delete all in bulk.