Microsoft KB Archive/22747

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{| The information in this article applies to:
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 * Microsoft Word for the Macintosh, versions 3.0, 3.01, 3.02, 4.0, 5.0, 5.1

SUMMARY
Automatic page breaks may appear in Microsoft Word documents for a number of reasons. Below is a list of common causes; specific definitions of the different formats are described in the "More Information" section below:

  Word allows paragraph formats of "Page Break Before," "Keep With Next," and "Keep Lines Together." To see if a paragraph or a group of paragraphs have one or more of these formats, do the following: a. Select the paragraphs after the unexpected automatic page break. b. From the Format menu, choose Paragraph. c. If any of these formats is applied, their respective check boxes will either be selected or unavailable. To remove the formatting, click the appropriate check box in step D above until it is clear.   A header or footer is defined to print a large distance from the top or bottom of the page. To check this, from the File Menu choose Document Layout and select the Margins tab (In Word 5.x from the Format menu choose Section). If the "Header/Footer From Top/From Bottom" measurement seems large, enter a smaller number. For example, if a header has been inserted in a document and the Section dialog box specifies that the header should print 10.75 inches from the top margin, page breaks will occur after every line (assuming you have top and bottom margins set to 1 inch).   A header or footer that contains several blank returns can also cause this problem. To check this, choose Header or Footer from the View menu (Open Header/Open Footer from the Document menu in Word 4.0). Because Word makes room for the Header and Footer, the main body of the document will contract to accomodate the Header or Footer. To correct the problem, open the Header/Footer and remove the extra paragraph returns and close the Header/Footer.   A small page size is defined for the document. To check this: In Word 5.0 and 5.1, choose Preferences from the Tools menu. In Word 4.0, choose Preferences from the Edit menu. In Word 3.0x, choose Page Setup from the File menu. (Note: This only applies to Word 4.0 and 5.0 if an ImageWriter     has been selected in the Chooser). Similarly, a large top and/or bottom margin can cause the same effect. To check this: In Word 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1, choose Document from the Format menu. In Word 3.x, choose Page Setup from the File menu. For example, if you had a top margin of 6 inches and a bottom margin of 4 inches, you would be defining a 1-inch page (even if letter size paper is selected), causing the unwanted page breaks.  Paragraphs with the side-by-side paragraph format may be too long to fit on the current page. If any of a group of paragraphs formatted to be side-by-side has more lines than will fit on the current page, the whole group of paragraphs will be wrapped to the next page.

MORE INFORMATION
The Page Break Before paragraph format places an automatic page break before the first character of the formatted paragraph.

The Keep With Next paragraph format forces a paragraph to always be placed on the same page as the following paragraph. If the next paragraph falls on the next page, the paragraph formatted as Keep With Next also moves to the next page. Word indicates this situation by placing an automatic page break above the formatted paragraph if appropriate.

The Keep Lines Together paragraph format prevents a paragraph from having a page break fall in the middle of the paragraph. If a paragraph formatted with this option occurs at the end of a page, Word places the whole paragraph on the next page, and indicates this by placing an automatic page break at the top of the paragraph.

Headers and footers allow you to enter text to appear at the top or bottom of every page in a document. By default, they appear 0.5 inch from the top and/or bottom of the page.

Page sizes are available for standard U.S. Letter (8.5 by 11 inches), U.S. Legal (8.5 by 14 inches), A4 Letter (8.25 by 11.67 inches), and B5 Letter (6.88 by 9.92 inches). In addition, Word allows custom paper sizes as described above.

Page margins set the amount of default white space between the edges of the page and the text of a document. Word's default margins are 1 inch for top and bottom and 1.25 inches for right and left.

The side-by-side paragraph format allows you to create successive paragraphs that are aligned in columns. (Beginning with Word 4.0, you can easily do this with tables.)

The Table feature in recent versions of Word allows you to create a structure of rows and columns that contain normal text.
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Last reviewed: November 17, 1997

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