How to Remove a Blank Page in a Word Document

Blank pages in Microsoft Word are one of those frustratingly common problems that look simple but can be surprisingly stubborn to fix. You delete the page, it comes back. You press Backspace repeatedly, nothing happens. That's because blank pages aren't always what they appear — they're usually a symptom of something else going on in your document's formatting.

Understanding why the blank page is there is the fastest path to removing it for good.

Why Blank Pages Appear in Word

Word doesn't just create blank pages randomly. They almost always stem from one of these underlying causes:

• Extra paragraph marks — Word requires at least one paragraph mark to exist in a document. If you have several stacked at the end, they push content onto a new page.
• Manual page breaks — Inserted intentionally or accidentally, these force a new page regardless of content.
• Section breaks — These are trickier. Certain section break types (like "Next Page" breaks) generate a new page as part of their function.
• Table at the end of a document — When a table ends on the last page, Word automatically inserts a paragraph mark after it that cannot be deleted conventionally. This is one of the most common causes of a final blank page.
• Page break before paragraph formatting — Some heading styles have "page break before" enabled in their paragraph settings, which silently forces content to a new page.

Step 1: Make Hidden Formatting Visible

Before you can fix the problem, you need to see what's causing it. Turn on formatting marks by pressing:

• Windows: Ctrl + Shift + 8
• Mac: Command + 8

Or click the ¶ (pilcrow) button in the Home tab toolbar.

This reveals paragraph marks (¶), manual page breaks, and section breaks — the invisible characters most likely responsible for your blank page.

Step 2: Identify What's on the Blank Page 🔍

Click somewhere on the blank page and look at what the formatting marks show you.

If you see paragraph marks (¶): Select them and press Delete or Backspace. If the page disappears, those extra paragraphs were the culprit.

If you see "Page Break": Click directly on that line, select it, and press Delete. Manual page breaks are straightforward to remove once visible.

If you see a section break (e.g., "Section Break (Next Page)"): Be cautious here. Deleting a section break merges the formatting of the two sections it was separating. If each section has different headers, footers, margins, or orientation, removing the break may unintentionally change your document's layout. If that's acceptable, select the section break and press Delete.

Step 3: Handle the Post-Table Blank Page

This is the scenario that trips up most users. If your document ends with a table, Word cannot delete the paragraph mark that follows it — it's a required element. Here's the workaround:

1. Click on the paragraph mark after the table (on the blank page).
2. Go to Home → Font and reduce the font size of that paragraph mark to 1pt.
3. Then open the paragraph settings (click the small arrow in the Paragraph section) and set the spacing before and after to 0pt, and line spacing to Fixed at 1pt.

This effectively makes the required paragraph mark so small it no longer pushes onto a new page. It's a workaround, not a deletion — but it reliably solves the problem.

Alternatively, you can select that paragraph mark and check if "Page break before" is enabled in Paragraph → Line and Page Breaks, then uncheck it.

Step 4: Check Paragraph Spacing on Headings

Sometimes a blank page appears not because of a page break, but because a heading style has "Page break before" enabled in its formatting. This is common with Heading 1 styles in certain templates.

To check:

1. Click on the heading that appears at the top of the unwanted blank page.
2. Open Paragraph settings (right-click → Paragraph, or use the dialog launcher in the Paragraph group).
3. Go to the Line and Page Breaks tab.
4. Uncheck "Page break before" if it's selected.

Common Scenarios and Their Fixes

When the Blank Page Is in the Middle of a Document

Blank pages mid-document are almost always caused by a manual page break or a section break. With formatting marks visible, these will be clearly labeled. The fix is the same — select and delete — but the formatting consequence warning applies even more strongly to mid-document section breaks, since those are more likely to be intentionally separating distinct sections with different layouts. 📄

Version and Platform Variables

The steps above apply broadly across Word for Windows and Word for Mac, but the exact menu locations shift between versions:

• Word 2016–2019 and Microsoft 365 share a nearly identical interface.
• Word for Mac uses the same keyboard shortcut logic but menus are accessed through the Mac menu bar rather than the ribbon in some cases.
• Word Online (browser version) has limited formatting control — some of these fixes, particularly the post-table paragraph workaround, may not be available or may behave differently.

The right approach for your blank page depends on what's generating it in the first place. A document with complex section formatting, custom styles, or embedded tables introduces more variables than a simple single-section document — and what works cleanly in one case may require more care in another.