How to Delete an Extra Page in Word: 4 Easy Methods

Knowing how to delete an extra page in Word saves the frustration of a blank sheet that won’t go away no matter how many times you hit Backspace. The fix is almost always a hidden page break or section break — and once you can see them, removing them takes seconds. If you want to keep formatting marks visible permanently afterwards, see how to remove formatting marks in Word.

In this guide, you’ll learn four ways to delete an extra page in Word — turning on Show/Hide to find the culprit, removing page breaks, removing section breaks, and fixing the trailing breaks that tables leave behind.

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Why Extra Pages Appear in Word

Before you delete an extra page in Word, it helps to know that empty pages don’t appear from nowhere — they’re caused by hidden formatting elements that don’t show up unless you ask Word to reveal them:

• Page breaks — force content onto a new page
• Section breaks — change layout or formatting and can create a blank page in the process
• Extra paragraph marks — invisible empty lines pushing content to a new page
• Trailing table breaks — Word automatically adds a paragraph after every table, which can spill onto a new page

These elements stay invisible until you turn on formatting tools — and once they’re visible, every fix that follows becomes a two-second job rather than a five-minute hunt.

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How to Delete an Extra Page in Word: Step-by-Step

There are four reliable ways to delete an extra page in Word. Method 1 reveals what’s causing the page so you know what you’re targeting. Methods 2 and 3 handle the two most common causes — page breaks and section breaks — and Method 4 fixes the table-specific case where Word adds a phantom paragraph after a table.

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Method 1: How to Delete an Extra Page in Word Using Show/Hide

This isn’t a deletion method on its own — it’s the diagnostic step that makes every other method work. Without Show/Hide on, you’re deleting blind.

Steps:

1. Go to the Home tab
2. Click the Show/Hide (¶) button — the backwards “P” symbol in the Paragraph group
3. Or press Ctrl + Shift + 8 for the keyboard shortcut

👉 Page breaks, section breaks, and paragraph marks now appear inline. The culprit on your extra page will be one of these — usually a thick dashed line saying “Page Break” or “Section Break”.

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Method 2: How to Delete an Extra Page in Word Caused by a Page Break

Page breaks are the most common cause of unwanted blank pages and the easiest to remove.

Steps:

1. Place the cursor at the top of the extra page
2. Press Backspace once

👉 The page break disappears and the extra page collapses. If the page still doesn’t go, the cause is a section break — use Method 3 instead.

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Method 3: How to Delete an Extra Page in Word Caused by a Section Break

Section breaks are trickier because they also control layout and formatting — removing one can affect headers, footers, and orientation either side. For a full breakdown of how section breaks behave with headers and footers, see our guide on how to use different page numbers in Word.

Steps:

1. Make sure Show/Hide (¶) is on so you can see the section break
2. Click immediately before the section break marker
3. Press Delete to remove the break
4. If the ruler shifts but the page stays, press Backspace as well

👉 The section break removes and the extra page collapses. Check headers and footers after deleting — the layout from the next section becomes the new default for everything above.

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Method 4: How to Delete an Extra Page in Word Left by a Table

Word always adds a paragraph mark after a table — there’s no way to disable it. When a table sits at the bottom of a page, that paragraph mark gets pushed to a new page, creating the appearance of an empty page caused by the table.

Steps:

1. Turn on Show/Hide (¶)
2. Click the paragraph mark on the empty page after the table
3. Open Home → Font → Font Size and change the size to 1
4. Press Enter

👉 The paragraph mark shrinks small enough to fit beneath the table, and the extra page disappears. This is the standard fix when “the table is creating an extra page” — Word’s invisible trailing paragraph is the real cause.

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Which Method Should You Use?

Method	Best For	Cause	Risk
Method 1 — Show/Hide	Diagnosing the issue first	All causes	None — display only
Method 2 — Backspace	Standard page break	Inserted page break	Low
Method 3 — Delete	Section break causing the page	Section break	May affect headers/footers
Method 4 — Font Size 1	Extra page after a table	Trailing table paragraph	None

Always start with Method 1 — once you can see the formatting marks, the right deletion method becomes obvious.

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Common Problems When Deleting an Extra Page in Word

Backspace does nothing on the extra page

The cause is a section break, not a page break. Section breaks need Delete rather than Backspace — click immediately before the section break marker and press Delete as shown in Method 3.

Headers or footers change after deleting a section break

Section breaks separate different header/footer settings. When you delete one, the layout from the section below becomes the default for everything above. Press Ctrl + Z to undo, then check whether the section break is doing something you actually need.

An extra page keeps appearing after my table

Word adds an invisible paragraph after every table and you can’t remove it — but you can shrink it. Click the paragraph mark below the table and change its font size to 1 (Method 4). The paragraph stays, but it no longer pushes content onto a new page.

I can’t see any breaks even with Show/Hide on

Check File → Options → Display and make sure All is ticked under “Always show these formatting marks on the screen”. If breaks still don’t appear, the issue is empty paragraph marks rather than breaks — press Backspace repeatedly at the top of the empty page to clear them.

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Pro Tips

• Keep Show/Hide on while you’re editing complex documents — it surfaces problems before they multiply, particularly when you’re working alongside our guide on how to remove formatting marks in Word for the final cleanup.
• Press Ctrl + End to jump to the very last position in the document — usually exactly where the rogue paragraph mark is hiding.
• Use Ctrl + Z immediately after deleting a section break if anything looks wrong — it’s easier to undo and try Method 4 than to rebuild a broken header/footer setup.
• Use Print Preview (Ctrl + P) as a final check — what you see there is what actually prints, including any phantom blank pages you might have missed.

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FAQs

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Conclusion

Once you know how to delete an extra page in Word, the process never takes more than a few seconds — turn on Show/Hide, identify the page break, section break, or trailing paragraph causing the issue, and remove it with the right key.

The deeper fix is keeping formatting marks visible while you work so problems never accumulate in the first place — start with our guide on how to remove formatting marks in Word when you’re ready to clean them up at the end.

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Related Tutorials

• How to Remove Formatting Marks in Word
• How to Use Different Page Numbers in Word
• How to Merge Tables in Word