Normally, to delete a blank page in your Word doc, you place the insertion pointer on that page and press the Delete or Backspace key. This simple method has been explained here.
However, there are some blank pages that can’t be deleted with this trick. Pressing the Delete or Backspace key doesn’t seem to work under such circumstances. And this can be very frustrating, and even more frustrating when printing the document – where the blank pages got printed too with nothing on the paper.
Let me tell you why!
Why are some blank pages in Word refuse to Delete?
There are some paragraph marks and other hidden formatting symbols throughout your Word document. These paragraph marks are hidden by default, so you can’t see them unless you turn them on.
So, if you fail to delete a blank page with the Delete or Backspace key, then technically the page isn’t blank. It means that one of the paragraph marks or hidden formatting symbols get pushed down, hence creating the new blank page.
To solve this problem, you must first get rid of these hidden marks or symbols.
Without further ado, let’s see how we can do this.
Delete a blank page in Word (By removing the Last paragraph mark)
One way to delete any extra blank page in Word is to remove the last paragraph mark or any hidden formatting symbol that gets pushed down to the new blank page.
Obey the instructions below to perform this task:
- Press Ctrl+Shift+8 on PC or Command ⌘+8 on Mac.
- Alternatively, go to the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click on the Paragraph Symbol.
This action will display all the paragraph marks and all the hidden formatting symbols in the document.
You’ll also notice that the extra blank page contains the paragraph mark or symbol.
- Highlight any paragraph mark or symbol on the blank page and press the Delete key to delete it. Or right-click on the highlighted symbol, then select cut.
As soon as you delete the mark or symbol, Word will also delete the extra blank page from your document.
If the above method fails, then try the one below.
Delete blank pages in Word (By formatting the Last paragraph symbol)
In the above option, you can delete any extra blank page in Word by deleting the leading paragraph symbols on the blank page.
However, in some cases, the paragraph mark on the blank page cannot be deleted at all. For example, if your document has a table as the last object in your document, Word will include a non-removable end paragraph after the table. This ending paragraph cannot be deleted whatsoever.
In this case, you must format the last paragraph mark on the extra blank page to become so small that it fits into the preceding page.
To do that, follow the instructions below:
- Press Ctrl+Shift+8 on PC or Command ⌘+8 on Mac to display all the paragraph marks in the document.
- Go to the Blank page and select the paragraph mark on that page.
- Change its font size to 1.
As soon as you change the font, the paragraph symbol will become so small that it fits in the preceding page deleting the extra blank page.
Delete blank pages in Word (Using Navigation Pane)
Aside from the two options above, you can also delete extra blank pages in your document using the Navigation Pane. This option makes sense if the blank pages you want to delete is found between other pages in your word document.
With the Navigation Pane, you can display several pages thumbnails which allows you to easily spot any blank page between the pages. That way, you can just click and delete those blank pages one after the other.
Without further ado, this is how it works:
- In the View tab, click to check the Navigation Pane.
- In the Navigation Pane, Click on the Pages tab to display the list of pages available in your Word document.
- Now scroll through the thumbnails and search for the Blank pages you want to delete.
- Click to select the blank page and press the Delete key to delete that page.
You cannot select several thumbnail pages in the Navigation Pane. This makes it impossible to delete multiple blank pages at once. So, you’ll have to delete them one by one until all the blank pages are deleted from your Word document.