How to Delete a Page in MS Word

Remove text you no longer need

By
Joli Ballew
Joli Ballew
Joli Ballew
Writer
  • University of Texas
Joli Ballew is a former freelance contributor to Lifewire and Microsoft MVP, Lynda.com trainer, Microsoft Press author, and college professor.
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Updated on January 1, 2021
Reviewed by
Jon Fisher
Jon Fisher headshot
Reviewed by Jon Fisher
  • Wichita Technical Institute

Jonathan Fisher is a CompTIA-certified technologist with more than 10 years of experience writing for publications like TechNorms and Help Desk Geek.

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What to Know

  • Position the cursor at the beginning of the text on a page.
  • Press and hold Ctrl+Shift (or Command+Shift on a Mac) and the down arrow simultaneously to highlight one paragraph at a time.
  • Release the keys and press Backspace.

While there's no action that deletes a page from a multi-page Microsoft Word document, you can remove the text on a page with the Delete or Backspace key. When the page is empty of the text and other elements, the next page moves up to take its place. This information applies to all versions of Word.

How to Delete Pages in Microsoft Word

To remove all the material on a page, select the text and position the cursor at the end of the text you want to remove. Then press and hold the Backspace key (or Delete key on a Mac). Depending on how much text you have, consider using a shortcut to highlight the text.

  1. Place the cursor at the beginning of the text you want to remove.

  2. Press and hold Ctrl+Shift (or Command+Shift on a Mac). At the same time, press the Down Arrow on the keyboard to highlight one paragraph at a time. Continue until all the text you want to remove is highlighted and release all three keys.

    Alternatively, use the mouse or touchpad to highlight all the text on the page you want to delete.

    Microsoft Word with page of text highlighted

  3. Press the Backspace key (or Delete on a Mac) once to delete all the highlighted text. After the text is removed, the text on the following page moves up to take its place.

    Microsoft Word document

Use the Delete Key

Using the Delete key on a PC to remove a page is similar to using the Backspace key, except you place the cursor at the beginning of the text you want to remove instead of at the end. If you want to highlight then remove text, follow the instructions above but, instead of pressing the Backspace key, press the Delete key.

Use the Show/Hide Function

When you are selecting text for deletion, it is helpful to see the hidden formatting symbols. The Show/Hide function in Word displays hidden paragraph marks, table cells, page breaks, and spaces between words. Use it to see what you need to remove and to avoid removing text you want to keep.

Here's how to activate the Show/Hide function before you remove the text on a Word document page.

  1. On the ribbon, select Home.

  2. In the Paragraph group, select the Show/Hide (paragraph symbol) icon to display the formatting symbols.

    Paragraph icon in Word's Home tab

  3. To turn off this feature, select Show/Hide again.

  4. Alternatively, use the key combination Ctrl+Shift+8 (or Command+Shift+8) to toggle the Show/Hide feature on and off.

If you're collaborating on a document, turn on Track Changes before making major revisions so collaborators can see the contributions you've made. 

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