How to delete a blank page in Word — the page after a table, and why Ctrl+Enter beats pressing Enter

First, show formatting marks (¶) — see what's on the blank page

A blank page is never really empty — something invisible is on it. Click the ¶ button in the Home tab's Paragraph group (Microsoft calls it Show/Hide ¶) or press Ctrl+Shift+8, and paragraph marks (¶), page breaks and section breaks appear on screen. They don't print.

If there are many breaks, remove them all with Find and Replace (Ctrl+H): put ^m (manual page break) or ^b (section break) in Find what, leave Replace with empty, and click Replace All. On this PC, ^m took the page break count from 1 to 0 and the document from 2 pages to 1; ^b took 2 sections to 1.

The trap — the blank page after a full-page table won't delete

Word always keeps one paragraph right after a table. When the table runs to the bottom of the page, that paragraph alone moves to the next page — a blank page. On this PC the table rows and spacing were tuned until the table's last row was on page 1 and only the end paragraph was on page 2. Deleting the end paragraph changed nothing: same text, still 2 pages.

1. 1With formatting marks on, drag to select the ¶ at the top of the blank page.
2. 2Type 1 in the Font Size box on the Home tab and press Enter. That alone took 2 pages to 1 on this PC (the answer file went from 3 pages to 2).
3. 3If it still won't fit, open Paragraph (the small arrow at the bottom right of the Home tab's Paragraph group) and set Spacing Before and After to 0 and Line spacing to Exactly 1 pt — saved as PDF, that was 1 page on this PC.

Page break (Ctrl+Enter) — don't push text down with Enter

To start '2. Spending' at the top of the next page, Enter was pressed in front of it — 20 times on this PC before it reached page 2 (84.8 pt from the top). Then five lines were added on page 1: the empty paragraphs were pushed along, and the heading ended up at 193.5 pt — halfway down page 2.

Delete the empty paragraphs, put the cursor in front of the heading and press Ctrl+Enter (or Insert > Page Break). A 'Page Break' line goes in and the heading moves to the top of page 2. This time five more lines on page 1 left the heading at 84.8 pt. Word's key assignments on this PC also list Ctrl+Enter as InsertPageBreak.

Result — practice 3 pages, answer 2 pages

Common snags

• Nothing shows on the blank page: turn on formatting marks (Ctrl+Shift+8) — ¶, page breaks and section breaks become visible
• The page after a table won't go away: that paragraph can't be deleted — set its ¶ to font size 1, and if needed spacing 0 and line spacing Exactly 1 pt
• Deleting a section break changed the page before it: Microsoft's help says the two sections merge and take the formatting of the second one — check both have the same orientation and margins first
• The heading moves every time you edit above it: it was pushed with Enter — delete the empty lines and use Ctrl+Enter
• Pressed Ctrl+Shift+Enter: that's a column break — show formatting marks, delete that line and use Ctrl+Enter

Practice

Open the practice file (3 pages — '2. Spending' pushed with Enter, and a blank page after the table) and try this:

1. 1Press Ctrl+Shift+8 to show formatting marks. Find the run of empty ¶ on page 1 and the single ¶ on page 3.
2. 2Delete all the empty paragraphs on page 1 and press Ctrl+Enter in front of '2. Spending'.
3. 3Select the ¶ on page 3 and set the font size to 1 — the status bar should say page 2 of 2.
4. 4Add a few lines after the first paragraph on page 1. If '2. Spending' stays at the top of page 2, you're done.

The answer file uses a page break instead of the Enters, and sets the paragraph after the table to font size 1, spacing 0 and line spacing Exactly 1 pt — 2 pages.

FAQ