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: Preventing Straggling Heads.

Preventing Straggling Heads

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 22, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

There are certain paragraphs that naturally belong with another paragraph. For instance, section headings belong with the paragraphs that follow them, a signature line belongs with the explanation line that may be after it, and a figure belongs with the caption that may follow it. Word makes it easy to keep certain paragraph pairings together. To format paragraphs so they stay together, use the following steps:

Position the insertion point in the first paragraph of the pair you want to keep together.
Select the Paragraph option from the Format menu. You will see the Paragraph dialog box.
Click on the Line and Page Breaks tab. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box.

Make sure the Keep with Next check box is selected.
Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1063) 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: Preventing Straggling Heads.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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