The fastest way to remove a blank or unwanted page
To delete a page in Word, place your cursor anywhere on that page, then press Ctrl+A to select all content on the page, and press Delete. If the page is truly blank with no text or images, Word will remove it. If the page contains text or objects you want to keep but the page itself won't delete, the blank space is likely caused by formatting — extra paragraph marks, page breaks, or spacing settings — which you'll need to target differently.
The method that works depends on why the page exists in the first place. A page created by a manual page break behaves differently from one created by a section break or by accumulated spacing. Knowing which one you're dealing with saves time and prevents accidentally deleting content you meant to keep.
Key Takeaways
- Blank pages at the end of a document usually come from extra paragraph marks or manual page breaks, which you can see and delete using the Show/Hide formatting marks button.
- A page break inserted manually (Ctrl+Enter) appears as a line labeled "Page Break" when formatting marks are visible, and you can delete it by clicking on it and pressing Delete.
- If a page won't delete even after removing visible content, check for extra spacing in the paragraph settings or a section break that's forcing content onto a new page.
- Selecting an entire page with Ctrl+A and pressing Delete works only if that page contains selectable content; blank space created by formatting requires you to find and remove the formatting itself.
Show formatting marks to see what's creating the page
Before you delete anything, turn on the formatting marks view so you can see what's actually on the page. In Word, press Ctrl+Shift+8 (or click the ¶ button in the Home tab). This reveals paragraph marks, page breaks, spaces, and tabs as visible symbols.
Look at the page you want to delete. If you see a line that says "-------- Page Break --------", that's a manual page break you inserted, and you can click on it and press Delete to remove it. If you see only paragraph marks (¶) stacked on top of each other, those are empty paragraphs taking up space, and you can delete them one at a time or select multiple marks and delete them together.
If the page appears completely empty even with formatting marks on, scroll through it carefully — sometimes a single paragraph mark or a table at the bottom of the previous page is pushing content to a new page. The formatting marks view makes these invisible culprits visible.
Delete manual page breaks
A manual page break is the most straightforward page to remove. You create one by pressing Ctrl+Enter, and it appears as a horizontal line labeled "Page Break" when formatting marks are visible.
To delete it, click directly on the page break line itself, then press Delete or Backspace. The page break disappears, and the content that was on the next page moves up to fill the space. This is the safest deletion because you're removing only the break itself, not any text or images.
If you have multiple page breaks to remove, you can use Find and Replace to speed up the process. Press Ctrl+H to open Find and Replace, then in the Find field, click More Options and check Special, then select Manual Page Break. Leave the Replace field empty and click Replace All. Word will remove every manual page break in the document at once.
Remove extra paragraph marks and spacing
Extra paragraph marks are the most common reason a blank page appears at the end of a document. With formatting marks visible (Ctrl+Shift+8), you'll see them as ¶ symbols stacked together. Click at the end of the last line of real content, then hold Shift and press Down Arrow repeatedly to select all the empty paragraph marks below it, then press Delete.
Sometimes a page persists even after you've removed paragraph marks because the spacing between paragraphs is set too high. Click on the paragraph above the blank page, then go to Home tab and click the small arrow next to Paragraph (bottom right of the Paragraph group). In the dialog, look at the Spacing section — if "After" is set to a large number like 12pt or 18pt, reduce it to 0pt or 6pt, then click OK. This often collapses the blank space.
Handle section breaks and page breaks created by formatting
Sometimes a page won't delete because a section break is forcing content onto a new page. Section breaks look different from page breaks — they appear as a line labeled "Section Break (Next Page)" or similar. These are trickier because they control formatting for an entire section, not just a page boundary.
If you see a section break and want to remove it, click on it and press Delete. However, this will also explore the formatting from the previous section to the content that follows. If that's not what you want, you may need to manually reapply formatting to the content that was in the deleted section.
Another cause of stubborn blank pages is a table at the bottom of the previous page. Tables in Word sometimes push a final paragraph mark onto a new page. If you see a blank page with only a single ¶ mark, try clicking on that mark and pressing Delete. If the page still won't go away, the table itself may have spacing settings forcing the paragraph down — click in the table, right-click, select Table Properties, go to the Row tab, and uncheck Allow row to break across pages.
Delete a page in the middle of a document
If the page you want to delete is in the middle of your document and contains actual content, select all the content on that page and delete it. Click at the start of the page, press Ctrl+Shift+End to select to the end of the page, then press Delete. This removes the content but may leave the page itself if formatting is holding it open.
After deleting the content, check for page breaks or section breaks that are keeping the page structure in place. With formatting marks visible, look for any break symbols on or near the blank page and delete those as well. If the page still won't collapse, check the paragraph spacing as described above.
If you're deleting a page that contains a table, click in the table, right-click, and select Delete Table rather than trying to select and delete the table's contents. This removes the entire table structure at once and is less likely to leave behind formatting artifacts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does a blank page keep coming back after I delete it?
The page is likely being created by formatting rather than by content. Check for a page break, section break, or high paragraph spacing that's pushing content onto a new page. With formatting marks visible, look for any break symbols. If you see none, the spacing settings in the paragraph properties are probably the culprit — reduce the "After" spacing value to 0pt or 6pt.
Can I delete a page without losing the text on it?
Yes. If you want to keep the text but remove the page break, find the page break symbol (visible when formatting marks are on) and delete only that symbol, not the text. The text will move up to the previous page. If there's no page break visible, the text is being pushed down by spacing or a section break — fix those instead of deleting the text.
What's the difference between a page break and a section break?
A page break straightforward moves content to the next page. A section break does that and also changes formatting settings for everything after it — like margins, headers, or column layout. Deleting a page break is safe; deleting a section break will explore the previous section's formatting to the content that follows, which may not be what you want.
How do I delete multiple pages at once?
Select all the content on those pages by clicking at the start of the first page you want to delete and dragging to the end of the last page, then press Delete. If the pages are separated by page breaks, you can use Find and Replace (Ctrl+H) to remove all manual page breaks at once by searching for manual page breaks and replacing them with nothing.
Why won't Ctrl+A and Delete work on my blank page?
Ctrl+A selects all content in the document, not just the current page, so it's not the right tool for deleting a single page. Instead, use the formatting marks view to find what's creating the page — a page break, paragraph marks, or spacing — and delete that specific element. This is safer and more precise.