How to Delete a Blank Page in Word, Even the Last One

To delete a blank page in Word, press Ctrl + Shift + 8 (Command + 8 on a Mac) to show paragraph marks, select the mark sitting alone on that page and press Delete. If the blank page is at the end of the document and the mark won’t go away, the fix is different, and it’s covered in the section on the final paragraph below.

Nearly every blank page has an invisible cause: an empty paragraph, a manual page break or a section break. The trick is to make Word show you what it hides.

Step one: show the formatting marks

Word doesn’t draw the marks that control your text unless you ask. They show up as gray symbols, and the most common one is ¶, which marks the end of a paragraph, including empty ones.

1. Open the document.
2. Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 on Windows or Command + 8 on a Mac. You can also click the ¶ button on the Home tab, in the Paragraph group.
3. Scroll to the blank page. You should see one or more ¶ symbols, or a dotted line labeled “Page Break” or “Section Break.”
4. Select what’s there and press Delete. You may need to press it more than once.
5. Press the shortcut again to hide the marks.

Check the result after each press. Hit Delete too many times and you’ll start removing real text from the next page.

Deleting a page that has content

If the page isn’t empty and you really want it gone, Microsoft describes two ways.

Select the content. Highlight everything on the page, including text, images and empty paragraphs, and press Delete. For short documents this is the quickest route.

Use Go To. This works well when the page is long and you don’t want to drag the mouse:

1. Click anywhere on the page.
2. Press Ctrl + G (Option + Command + G on a Mac).
3. In the Enter page number box, type \page (with a backslash).
4. Press Enter, then select Close.
5. Make sure the page’s content is selected and press Delete.

Manual page breaks

A manual page break pushes the text after it onto a new sheet. With the marks showing, it appears as a dotted line with the words “Page Break.” Click it and press Delete, and the text moves up. If the blank page was in the middle of the document, this is the likely cause.

A blank page at the end of the document

This one is frustrating, because the page stays even after you’ve deleted everything. Every Word document ends with a final paragraph mark that can’t be deleted. When the text fills the last page to the bottom, that mark gets pushed onto a new page, and that’s the blank page you’re looking at.

Microsoft’s fix is to make the mark fit on the previous page:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 (or Command + 8 on a Mac) to show the marks.
2. Select the paragraph mark ¶ on the blank page.
3. In the Font size box, type 01 and press Enter.
4. Press the shortcut again to hide the marks.

With a tiny font, the mark takes up almost no room and moves back to the previous page. The blank sheet disappears.

If it still won’t go, shrink the bottom margin. Go to Layout > Margins > Custom Margins and set the bottom margin to a small value, such as 0.3 inches, which is the example Microsoft gives.

A section break that creates an extra page

Section breaks let you change margins, orientation or numbering partway through a document. The Next Page, Odd Page and Even Page types start a new sheet, and when one sits at the very end of the file it produces a blank page.

• Section break at the end: place the cursor directly before the break and press Delete.
• Section break in the middle: don’t just delete it, because the previous section’s formatting can change. Double-click the break, go to Layout > Breaks, choose Continuous and click OK. The text then flows on without starting a new page.

To see breaks more clearly, switch to Draft view on the View tab, where section breaks appear as long dotted lines.

Two more causes people miss

Paragraph with “Page break before.” If the ¶ on the blank page has a small square beside it, that option may be on. Right-click the empty paragraph, open Paragraph Settings on the Home tab, go to Line and Page Breaks and clear Page break before.

A table or image at the page edge. According to Adobe, a table or image that runs slightly past the bottom margin can force a new page too. Resize it, move it or adjust the spacing after it.

Adobe also lists header and footer spacing, protected files and old documents open in compatibility mode as possible causes. If the file is an old .doc, save it as .docx and try again.

Word for Mac

The steps are the same. Only the shortcuts change: Command + 8 shows paragraph marks and Option + Command + G opens Go To. Microsoft doesn’t describe different menus for the Mac in this task.

What if the blank page only shows up when you print or save as PDF?

When the problem appears as you generate the file, the cause is usually one of the above, only visible in the final pagination. Check the last paragraph and any section breaks before you export. If you work with PDFs a lot, see our walkthrough on how to convert a PDF to Word, and if you’re starting from paper, you can scan a document with your phone.

Frequently asked questions

Why won’t Word let me delete the last page?

Because it holds the document’s final paragraph mark, which Word doesn’t allow you to delete. Shrink that mark to a 1-point font or reduce the bottom margin so it fits on the previous page.

Does deleting a section break mess up my formatting?

It can. A section break stores the settings of the section before it, such as margins and headers. In the middle of a document, change its type to Continuous instead of deleting it.

How do I find the blank page in a long document?

Use the Navigation Pane: on the View tab, turn on Navigation Pane and click Pages. The thumbnails show the empty sheets, and you can select one and press Delete.