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: Keeping Paragraphs on the Same Page.

Keeping Paragraphs on the Same Page

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 25, 2018)

For some types of documents you may not want your paragraphs to smoothly flow from one page to the next. Instead, you may want to make sure that any given paragraph appears all on one page or another. I require this type of formatting quite often in letters, legal documents, and proposals.

Word includes a formatting feature that allows you to ensure that paragraphs stay together without a page break in the middle of them. You apply this format characteristic by following these steps:

Select the paragraph or paragraphs you want affected by the formatting change. (If you want the change to a single paragraph only, you can simply make sure the insertion point is within that paragraph.)
Choose Paragraph from the Format menu. Word displays the Paragraph dialog box.
Make sure the Line and Page Breaks tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

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

Make sure the Keep Lines Together 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 (1433) 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: Keeping Paragraphs on the Same Page.

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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