Delete an Extra Blank Page

Occasionally, you may see an extra blank page in your paper. This can happen for a couple of reasons. Luckily, both are easily resolved.

More often than not, this is happening simply because the ENTER key on your keyboard was hit a few extra times after the last bit of text on the previous page. This inserted blank lines, resulting in the extra blank page.

To fix this, follow the steps below.

Deleting Extra Blank Lines

1. Go to Word's Home tab.
2. Click the Show Hidden Characters button.
   This is the button showing a paragraph symbol (¶). Once you click this button, all of the section breaks, page breaks, tabs, hard returns, etc. will be visible throughout the document.
3. Find the section break or page break on the extra blank page in the paper.
4. Place your cursor above the section break or page break.
5. Hit the DELETE key or BACKSPACE key on your keyboard to delete the extra blank lines (marked by ¶) above the section break or page break.
   Repeat this until the section break or page break moves up to the previous page.

Voila! You have removed the extra blank page from your paper.

Another reason why you might see an extra blank page in your paper is due to an extra section break or page break being inserted. For example, after the last text in the body of the paper, there is a section break to separate the body from the reference section. If an extra section break gets inserted after that section break, there will be a blank page between the body and the references.

To fix this, follow the steps below.

Deleting Extra Section Breaks or Page Breaks

1. Go to Word's Home tab.
2. Click the Show Hidden Characters button.
   This is the button showing a paragraph symbol (¶). Once you click this button, all of the section breaks, page breaks, tabs, hard returns, etc. will be visible throughout the document.
3. Find the extra section break or page break on the extra blank page in the paper.
   Please note that if you do not see another section break or page break on the previous page and only see blank lines with a ¶ symbol above the "extra" section break or page break, you should be following the previous steps under Delete Extra Blank Lines.
4. Place your cursor to the left of the section break or page break.
5. Hold the SHIFT button on your keyboard and hit the RIGHT ARROW key to highlight the section break or page break.
6. Hit the DELETE key to delete the highlighted section break or page break.

That's it! The extra blank page should now be gone from the paper.