Understanding Sections in Word

Office for Mere MortalsLast updated: 17 July 2018

Microsoft Office,Microsoft Word,Office for Mere Mortals

Sections are in every Word document – here’s how to use them to make Word do what you need.

In the last issue I described how to omit the page number on the last page of a document by using a section break and “de-linking” the header/footer between the sections.

You use sections to accomplish this feat because, in Word, page numbers are section features, not document features. Whenever you open a new document, you are, in essence, opening a single-section document. Thus the page numbering – if you add any – is continuous from one page to the next. If you want to alter the flow of page numbers, you usually do so by adding a new section and then adjusting the page numbering for that section.

Page numbering isn’t the only thing which is controlled on a section-by-section basis. You can adjust a variety of page formatting options for each section in your document, including:

the number of columns;

text alignment;

headers and footers;

settings for margins and borders;

line numbering;

footnotes and endnotes;

paper size and orientation.

If you have a printer with multiple paper trays you can even nominate a different tray for each section in a document – handy if you want to put your first and last pages on heavy card or colored paper, for instance, while the rest of the document prints on plain paper.

So sections are Word’s way of letting you change page formatting from one part of a document to another. You can create your own sections manually by inserting section breaks in your document, or Word will add sections automatically and on the quiet when you use certain page formatting commands – for example, whenever you use the ‘Apply to: this point forward’ option in the Page Setup dialog box.

If you want to keep an eye on the sections in your document, click the Paragraph button (Show/Hide ¶) to display document formatting.

SECTION TYPES AND THEIR USES

When you go to insert a page break (via Insert menu -> Break in Word 2003; via Page Layout tab -> Breaks in Word 2007), you’ll see there are four different types of section break: Next Page, Continuous, Even Page and Odd Page.

The ‘next page’ section break lets you create a new section on a new page. In all likelihood this is the type of section you’ll create most frequently.

Make sure you don’t confuse a next page section break with a page break – they’re quite different. A page break creates a new page in your document – it comes in handy when you want to start a piece of text at the top of a page. A next page section, on the surface, has the same effect as a page break, but it also stores formatting information. If you try to substitute sections breaks for page breaks, you’ll end up with unnecessary complications in your document and may cause yourself confusion when applying document-wide formatting.

A ‘continuous’ section break allows you to create a new section on the current page. Such breaks are particularly useful when you’re laying out articles or brochures that combine single-column and multi-column text elements. You can also use a continuous section break when you’re using, say, two-column text in the body of a document but you want the headline to run across the entire page.

The ‘even page’ and ‘odd page’ breaks create new sections on a new even or odd page respectively. Such breaks are useful when you’re working on a book or magazine where you need formatting consistency, with each chapter or article commencing on either the left or right-hand page. In magazine publication, for instance, editors try to ensure most articles start on the right-hand/odd-numbered page, which is regarded as a ‘strong’ page due to its visual pull and sense of a new beginning. When you insert such a break, a blank page will be added to the document if required to ensure the new section begins on the appropriate odd or even page.

THOSE ALL IMPORTANT FORMATTING MARKS

Go ahead and click the Show/Hide ¶ button (or press Ctrl+Shift+8) to display the formatting marks in your document. Each paragraph ends with a paragraph mark (¶) while section breaks show up as double dotted lines labeled to indicate the type of section break.

Word stores all the settings for the preceding section in the section mark itself. So if you have a document containing three sections with the first formatted as single-column text, the second as two-column text and the third as three-column text, if you delete the first section break (click the section mark and press Delete), your document will now contain two-column text in the first part and three-column in the second. Delete the break between those two sections, and the entire document will contain three-column text.

A handy shortcut if you want to quickly change the page formatting for a section is to double-click the section mark at the end of the section – the Page Setup dialog box will spring open. You can also use this shortcut to change a section break’s type. For example, to turn a continuous section break into a next page break, without losing any of the other section formatting you may have added, double-click the continuous section break mark, then in the Page Setup dialog box click the Layout tab, select Next Page from the Section Start drop-down box and click OK.