What are section breaks used for in a Word document

In Microsoft Word, section breaks are meant to divide your book into sections. In books, they are used between chapters and to divide the front-matter or back-matter pages. Section break should be placed after the title page, copyright page, dedication page, table of contents, chapter 1, chapter 2, and so on. These section breaks will create a page break between each of those sections.

Table of Contents Show

Page Numbering
Running Heads
Where to Start the Next Section
How to Insert a Section Break
Start Chapter One on Page #1
A Different Running Head for Each Chapter
Inserting a Document Break
Simple Page Breaks
Column Breaks
Text Wrapping Breaks
The Different Kinds of Section Breaks
Next Page Breaks
Even Page Breaks
Odd Page Breaks

But it is not just a page break. Section breaks also control the page numbers within the section, running heads, and whether the next section begins on the next page or next right hand (odd numbered) page. Let’s look at each of those.

Page Numbering

Section breaks allow you to control the numbering in each section. This lets you have page #1 be the first page of Chapter One. It also makes it possible to use lower case roman numerals for page numbers (i, ii, iii, iv, etc.) on the front-matter, and Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) on the chapter pages.

Running Heads

Each section has a first page, even page, and odd page header. You can place different running head text in each one (or not have any). In a book, the first-page header should be left blank as this would be the chapter title page, the even page header often has the book title, and the odd page header the current chapter title or author name. when you use section breaks, you can have different running heads in each section. This is useful for having the current chapter title for the running head of a section. You can also choose to link the current sections running head with the previous section if you want them to be the same.

Where to Start the Next Section

In a book, you often want to start the next section on the next right-side page (odd page). You would do this in Word by placing a Section Break: Odd Page before the chapter or section you want to start on the next odd numbered page, which will be a ride-side page. Word will then place a blank left-side page (if needed) before that next chapter to make certain that happens. Take note! Word will not display a blank left-side page in Normal view mode. This often confuses writers who don’t realize that that blank is there as they can’t see it. When you do a print preview, print, or create a PDF, Word will show the blank page. It is also reflected in the page numbering. You will notice that t seems that there is a missing page number. You might see a page 5, 6, 7, and then it goes to a new chapter which is shown as page 9. Where is page 8? It is a blank left-side page that Word is not showing you.

How to Insert a Section Break

Here is how you place a section break.

Place your cursor where you want the section break to be placed. For example, after the last sentence of a chapter, before the next chapter starts.
In the Word ribbon go to the Layout tab
Click on Breaks
From the drop down select either Next Page or Odd Page under Section Breaks.

You will then see a Section Break marker appear in your document (if you have show formatting marks turned on)

Start Chapter One on Page #1

Once your book is divided into sections, you can control the page numbering with in. For example, let’s say you want Chapter One to start on page #1. Make sure your chapters are divided into sections then place your cursor in Chapter One.

First, add page numbers to your section.
Place your cursor where you want the page numbers to appear in the section (such as the footer area)
From the Word ribbon go to the Insert
Click on the drop down for Page Number.
Choose Current Position then Plain Number.

Once your page number is where you want it, go back to that menu and select Format Page Numbers.
Choose the Number format, then Start at: 1. Click OK.

A Different Running Head for Each Chapter

Let’s say you want to place the current chapter title on the odd page running heads in your book. Here is how you would do that with the help of section breaks.
First, make certain you have your document divided up by section breaks.
Select all (press Ctrl + A)
Go into Layout from the Word menu.
Open the Page Setup
Under the Layout tab under Headers and footers check both Different odd and even and Different first page. Click OK.

Next, go into the header area of your document for Chapter One. You can get there by double clicking in that ear of your Word document.
Before you do anything else, make sure the Link to Previous toggle is NOT on. If it is on, it will link this running head with the running head in the previous section and they would both be the same. Click it if needed to turn it off.
Type your chapter title for this section in the header area. Click the Close Header
Repeat that process for each chapter in your book.

By the way, if you are hiring someone to do your book layout, don’t worry about having to do any of these things with section breaks. Your formatter will handle all of that for you and is likely using Adobe InDesign, not Microsoft Word to format your book.

Questions? Post them in the comment section below.

Page Numbers | Tutorial Main Menu | Training Homepage | Illustrations/Drawing

This section of the tutorial will cover document breaks, as well as the different kinds of page and section breaks that one may create.

In composing a document with multiple pages, particularly one with many chapter headings, it is sometimes difficult to format the text in such a way that some chapters do not begin at the bottom of a page (such as in the example of Fig. 3-6 below).

It also happens that when writing a paper, report, article, or book with multiple sections, difficulties with headers, footers, footnotes, and page numbers present themselves. As mentioned above in the section on Headers and Footers, Word 2013 does not automatically separate a document into sections. As a consequence, the program will duplicate the same headers and footers on each page, as well as continue page numbering and footnotes throughout the document.

For instance, when writing a paper with several sections, the header of the first section will automatically appear in the second as well (see Fig. 3-1 below).

Figure 3-1

In order to remedy this, it will be necessary to create a document break, which will indicate to Word how the document is to be partitioned. There are two types of document breaks, namely page breaks and section breaks. These two types are further subdivided into several different kinds of page and section breaks. The page breaks partition only the body text of the document, whereas the section breaks partition both the body text of the document, as well as partition page margins, headers and footers, page numbers, and the like.

Among the kinds of page breaks, there are simple page breaks, column breaks, and text wrapping breaks. The different kinds of section breaks include next page, continuous, even page, and odd page breaks. To learn more about the different kinds of page and section breaks, see their separate headings below, where they are covered in greater detail.

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Inserting a Document Break

Figure 3-2

Step 1. To insert a document break, first select the place where you would like it to begin by clicking on it within the body of the document. If your section begins on the next page, as is the case in the example above (Fig. 3-2), it is best to point your cursor and click on the very beginning of the next section.

Figure 3-3

Step 2. Then in the drop-down menu, select the type of break that you want. The difference between each of these different kinds of breaks will be discussed below. For now, we will just select Continuous under Section Breaks. Note that you may not be able ordinarily to see the break itself, although its presence will be made evident in the next step.

Figure 3-4

Tip. If you want to quickly add a simple page break to your document, click on the INSERT tab above the ribbon menu, and then select the Page Break option.

Fig. 3-5

Step 3. Confirm that your break has in fact been inserted by double-clicking on the header area above the body text. On the left under the header area, you should see a grey box which says Header -Section 2-. If you see this, then the break has successfully been created.

Note. To learn how to insert or format headers now that you have made your document break, see Section 1: Headers and Footers. To learn how to insert or format page numbers, see Section 2: Page Numbers.

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Having covered the basics of how to create a document break, we will now turn our attention to the types of document breaks which may be created in Microsoft Word 2013.

The first type of document break is the page break, which partitions only the body text of the document. Of this type there are three kinds: simple page breaks, column page breaks, and text wrapping page breaks.

Simple Page Breaks

A simple page break will force all the text behind the cursor onto the next page. Below (Fig 3-6) is an example of what what two pages of a document might look like before inserting a simple page break.

Figure 3-6

As can be seen in the example above, Chapter One begins at the end of a page, causing the reader to turn the page two lines in. The work would read more easily if the beginning of the chapter began at the top of the next page, so a page break needs to be inserted into the document.

After the page break has been inserted, the pages will look like Fig. 3-7 below.

Figure 3-7

Column Breaks

If your document utilizes columns, when inserting a column break, any text to the right of the cursor where the break is inserted is forced into the next column. In the two examples below, Fig 3-8 shows the text before the column break, while Fig 3-9 is what the page looks like after the break has been created.

Figure 3-8	Figure 3-9

Text Wrapping Breaks

A text wrapping break moves any text to the right of the cursor to the next line. This kind of break may be particularly useful when your document contains images. Below are examples of a page before and after a text-wrapping break is created (Fig. 3-10 and 3-11, respectively).

Figure 3-10	Figure 3-11

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The Different Kinds of Section Breaks

The second type of document break is the section break, which partitions both the body text of the document and its associated formatting, such as headers and footers, page numbers, footnotes, margins, etc. Of this type there are four kinds: next page section breaks, continuous section breaks, even page section breaks, and odd page section breaks.

Next Page Breaks

A next page break forces the text to the right of the cursor to the following page, as well as partitions the document into sections, allowing for a change in margins, headers and footers, as well as differently numbered pages and footnotes. This is most useful when your document must be divided into chapters or sections. Below is an example of a paper with two sections, before (Fig. 3-12) and after (Fig. 3-13) a next page break.

Figure 3-12

After the next page break is created, the new section may be formatted separately from the first, and vice versa, while still remaining part of the same document.

Figure 3-13

Note. When formatting page numbers which will begin anew for each section, it will be necessary to right-click on the page number itself, and select Format Page Numbers, to bring up the formatting window (Fig. 2-4).

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A continuous break allows for the partition of a document, allowing the user to change headers and footers, page numbers, margins, etc., yet without having to alter or otherwise move the body text of the document. This kind of section break is most useful when a document has already been composed in part or in full, but still requires different formatting such as to footnotes, headings, or pagination in separate sections of the work. This allows for one section of a document to end and another to begin on the same page.