Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Avoiding a Section Break Booby Trap.
There's a "booby trap" when using section breaks that you may not be aware of. If you make a section break to create special page formatting and afterwards (for whatever reason) want to remove the section break, you could mess up the formatting of your document.
For instance, let's say you add a section break to your document, and format the portion before the section break different from that after. Thus, your document formatting can be described as follows:
Text with "normal" page layout ==== Section break ==== Text with special page layout
When you delete the section break, the whole document inherits the latter page layout. This is very seldom the result you wanted, since you probably wanted to get rid of the special page layout, not the normal page layout.
One way around this potential problem is to always add a pair of section breaks and then edit the page layout of the middle section:
Text with "normal" page layout ==== 1st section break ==== Text with special page layout ==== 2nd section break ==== Text with "normal" page layout
In this case, when you remove both section breaks you'll end up with the last page layout (which is "normal").
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (610) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Avoiding a Section Break Booby Trap.
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2016-10-12 12:01:37
Kava
Do you have any remedial suggestions, as opposed to this preventative advice?
2013-08-17 07:21:38
Karen Eubel
Thanks for this tip. I am no longer a word processor and don't use my WordTips very much. But this came just at a time when I needed it to help my husband insert one page with different formatting into a project he's doing. Thanks. Word Tips is always helpful.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: 
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