Last Page (blank) won't delete

Anonymous
2010-03-21T18:34:09+00:00

Hi! I inserted a table that lasted exactly two pages. However, at the end of the document (now on page 3), I cannot get the cursor to move back when I hit backspace. The cursor is outside of the table at this point. So I have a new page (page 3) that is blank, which I am trying to make go away.

I hope this does not sound confusing!

Thanks in advanced for any assistance.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2010-03-21T21:14:02+00:00

Hi JC555,

You cannot delete the final paragraph marker after a table. If it just so happens that the paragraph marker slips on to the next page, then there is a little trick that I learned eons ago.

You'll need the Show/Hide characters switched on to do this:

If you don't have them switched on already, click the Show/Hide button in the toolbar on the Home tab (it's the one with the symbol in it) to display your document formatting, then:.

  1. Select the final paragraph marker
  2. Right click on it and choose Paragraph... from the pop-up menu
  3. Under the Spacing category, make sure you have 0 in Before: and After:
  4. Click OK if you made any changes to the Spacing
  5. With the paragraph marker still selected: click on the little arrow in the Font Size button in the Font category and type 1 (you won't find it to select in the list)

    >>> This will ensure that the font is the smallest size possible. With a bit of luck it will make the rogue paragraph marker jump on to the preceding page.

>>> Is this response helpful? If so, please consider clicking the green Vote As Helpful button for the benefit of future visitors with the same question.

All the best,

Sharon

Sharon Roffey

Queensland, Australia

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Anonymous
2012-08-07T23:31:22+00:00

Hi Mike,

It *is* a proper fix or, better put, there is no fix ... the last paragraph marker simply cannot be deleted. Not ever. It contains all the formatting information on the preceding text.

In fact, it would be chaos if you could delete it! I guess it's just bad luck when it falls all on its lonesome on to the next page after a table.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-11-28T23:24:16+00:00

    Thankyou!! 

    ever so helpful

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-09-19T15:27:34+00:00

    I personally think MS cops too much flack. These products have been the standard for 20 years for a reason - they're bloody good! There are plenty of other options for people who are fed up - Open Office for simple stuff, or Latex which a lot of technical writers prefer (if you can be bothered to learn the syntax for stuff). There's always a trade off between making something robust and making something easy to use, and mostly MS get it right. Any time I get reeeeally annoyed it's because I've been too lazy to work out the best way to do it or to find the work around such as Sharon has just shown us. 

    Despite my praise, and that you clearly know exactly what is going on, it doesn't seem like it would be a huge challenge for the MS team to add a line of code that said something like

    if the only thing on the last page is a paragraph mark, don't display that page. Boom, solved.

    Thanks for the sneaky trick Sharon!

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-09-11T14:48:01+00:00

    YAY!!!  This has plagued me for some time.  Thank you Sharon!  You da bomb!!!

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