The fastest way: select the page and press Delete
To delete a page in Microsoft Word, the simplest method is to select all the content on that page and remove it. Click at the very beginning of the page you want to delete, then hold Shift and click at the end of the page. Once the text is highlighted in blue, press the Delete key or Backspace. The page will disappear, and the remaining content will shift up.
This works for most pages, but it leaves behind blank pages if they exist only because of formatting — extra paragraph marks, page breaks, or section breaks. If you delete the text and a blank page remains, you need a different approach.
Key Takeaways
- Selecting all content on a page and pressing Delete removes the text, but blank pages caused by formatting require you to delete the page break or extra paragraph marks instead.
- A manual page break appears as a line labeled "Page Break" when you turn on formatting marks — delete this line to remove the blank page it creates.
- Extra blank paragraph marks at the end of a page can push content to the next page; delete these marks one at a time by clicking before them and pressing Delete.
- If a page contains only a table, you must select the entire table and delete it, because deleting text inside the table cells alone will not remove the page.
Finding and removing manual page breaks
Word sometimes creates blank pages because you or another person inserted a manual page break. To see where these breaks are, turn on formatting marks: press Ctrl+* (or Cmd+* on Mac), or go to the Home tab and click the pilcrow symbol (¶). Manual page breaks appear as a line that says "Page Break" in the middle of your document.
Click directly on the "Page Break" line to position your cursor there, then press Delete. The page break disappears, and the content below moves up. If you see multiple page breaks in a row, delete them one at a time until the blank pages are gone.
Deleting extra paragraph marks that create blank pages
Sometimes a page is blank because there are too many empty paragraph marks (the ¶ symbol) at the bottom of the previous page. With formatting marks turned on, you can see these as stacked ¶ symbols. Click right before the first empty ¶ and press Delete repeatedly until the blank page disappears.
Be careful not to delete paragraph marks that separate sections you want to keep. If you delete too many and your formatting changes, press Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z on Mac) to undo and try again more slowly.
Removing a page that contains only a table
If the page you want to delete holds only a table, selecting and deleting the text inside the cells will not remove the page. Instead, you must select the entire table itself. Click anywhere inside the table, then go to the Table Design tab (or Table menu on Mac) and look for a "Select" option. Choose "Select Table" to highlight the whole table in blue.
Once the table is selected, press Delete. The table disappears, and if it was the only content on that page, the page is removed. If a blank page remains after the table is gone, follow the steps above to delete any remaining page breaks or extra paragraph marks.
Using Find and Replace to remove multiple page breaks at once
If your document has many unwanted page breaks scattered throughout, using Find and Replace is faster than deleting them one by one. Press Ctrl+H (or Cmd+H on Mac) to open the Find and Replace dialog. In the "Find what" field, you need to enter the code for a page break: type ^m (the caret symbol followed by the letter m).
Leave the "Replace with" field empty, then click "Replace All". Word will remove every manual page break in the document at once. This does not affect paragraph marks or section breaks, only the page breaks you inserted manually. If you want to be cautious, click "Replace" one at a time instead of "Replace All" so you can see what is being removed.
Checking for section breaks that might hide a page
A page can also exist because of a section break rather than a page break. Section breaks are used when different parts of a document need different formatting — different headers, margins, or column layouts. With formatting marks on, a section break appears as a line that says "Section Break (Next Page)" or similar.
If you no longer need the section, click on the section break line and press Delete. The two sections will merge, and any blank page created by the break will disappear. However, when sections merge, the formatting of the lower section usually takes over, so check that your document still looks the way you want it after you delete a section break.
What to do if the page will not delete
Sometimes a page stubbornly refuses to disappear no matter what you delete. This usually happens when Word is protecting the formatting of the document — for example, if the last paragraph mark in the document is set to a very large font size, or if there is a table at the very end with extra space after it.
Try selecting the last paragraph mark in the document (with formatting marks on) and changing its font size to match the rest of the text, or deleting any content after the last table. If the page still will not go away, try copying all the content you want to keep, creating a new blank document, and pasting the content there. This is a last resort, but it works when nothing else does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does a blank page appear after I delete text?
A blank page usually means there is a page break or section break creating it, or there are extra paragraph marks pushing content down. Turn on formatting marks to see what is causing it, then delete the page break, section break, or extra ¶ symbols.
Can I delete a page without losing the text on it?
Not in the traditional sense — deleting a page means removing its content. If you want to keep the text, cut it first (Ctrl+X), delete the page, then paste it (Ctrl+V) somewhere else in the document or in a new document.
What is the difference between a page break and a section break?
A page break forces content to start on a new page but keeps the same formatting. A section break starts a new page and allows different formatting — headers, margins, or columns — in that section. Both can create blank pages if they are not needed.
Will deleting a page break affect my document's formatting?
Deleting a manual page break will not change formatting — it just moves content up. Deleting a section break will cause the lower section to adopt the formatting of the upper section, so check your document after you delete one.
How do I delete every other page from a long document?
There is no single command to delete alternating pages. You must delete them one at a time, or select and delete the content on each page you want to remove. If the pages follow a pattern, using Find and Replace to remove page breaks at specific locations can speed this up.