How many ways can you break a page?

Method 1: Enter a section break.
Word 2003: On the menu, select Insert and then Break to display a Page Breaks pop-up.
Word 2007/2010: On the menu, select Page Layout tab, and then Breaks in the Page Setup group.  A Page Breaks pop-up appears.

Select a section break: Next Page, Even Page, or Odd Page. The Continuous section break has a special use.

When you set up your page layout, you select a section break option to start a new page.



In a long document, use this method to start a new chapter. This type of break affects what happens with your headers and footers. See Page Breakin' Ain't Hard to Do for a detailed explanation.

Method 2: Enter a manual page break.
On the Break pop-up you just displayed, you have an additional option in the to section of the pop-up: Page. Click this option and Word breaks the page and presents you with a new page.

You can get the same result by holding down the Crtl key and pressing Enter once (Ctrl + Enter).

In a long document, try to avoid using this method unless you are at the end of a chapter and you need to add a blank page so that your new chapter starts on a right side page. See Slip Sheeting for a detailed explanation.

Using this type of break in a long document means that you have to add and remove the break every time you add or remove text appearing before the break. Also, this type of break doesn't always give you the automatic spacing before text that is built into a style. I use this type of break sparingly.

Method 3: Enter a paragraph (local) page break.
Right-click in any string of text to dislay a pop-up menu. Select Paragraph to display the Paragraph dialog. On the Line and Page Breaks tab, select Page break before.

I try to set up long documents so that I'm only dealing with page breaking at the end/beginning of a chapter. If I must enter a page break mid-chapter, a local break is the type of page break I like to use. Here's why.

• Embedding your page break in the paragraph prevents document bloat. You don't have an emply line for the page break. Lots of empty lines in a long document cause the size of the document to pump up dramatically.
• Using this type of page break ensures that the space before the paragraph that you defined for the style is used. If you decide you don't want this space; that is, you want the text to start as close to the top of the page as possible, click the Indents and Spacing tab, locate the Spacing group, in the Before field, enter zero points before.

Method 4: Build a style that has a page break in it...the global approach.
And so we are back to the Achy Breaky Page Breakin' post; that is, building styles with automatic page breaks includes...the global approach.

You can carry this idea forward if you are willing to take the time the build the style. For example, say you want to take a Body Text style that is used for running text and build a secondary body text style that has the automatic page break in it and the space before the paragraph removed so that the text bumps right up against the top margin of the new page.

Using the regular Body Text style, you build a new style with a new name (Body Text PgBrk). When you have text in a paragragh that you want to have start on a new page, you apply the Body Text PgBrk style. If you add or remove text before this page breaked paragraph, you simply apply the regular Body Text style and the page break goes away. Taking this idea to this point is hyper automation but can be worth your time if you have a very long document and a limited number of styles that you are using.

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I'll continue talking about modifying a style. Be there or be square...