# Word 2010 Section Break (Next Page) problem



## Ripperdan (Oct 28, 2009)

I have a Microsoft Word 2010 document attached. That document consists of 2 pages.

Page 1 is formatted with 1 column, has some text and then has a Section Break (Next Page)

Page 2 is formatted with 2 columns and has some text with a Column Break.

I want to get rid of the Section Break (Next Page) on Page 1 and replace it with a Section Break (Continuous) so the top of page 1 is formatted with 1 column and after the Section Break (Continuous) formatted with 2 columns.

No matter how I insert a Section Break (Continuous) before the Section Break (Next Page) and then delete the Section Break (Next Page), the previously inserted Section Break (Continuous) changes to a Section Break (Next Page).


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## WendyM (Jun 28, 2003)

Hi Ripperdan,
It's inelegant and I'm sure there's a better way to do it, but what worked for me was to delete the section break and the column break, which gives you everything on the left side of a two-column layout. Change the layout of the document to one column, and then highlight just the text that you want in two columns and change the layout to two columns. That will automatically put in a continuous section break. Then you can put the column break in as needed. I'm attaching the revised document. Hope that helps.


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## Ripperdan (Oct 28, 2009)

I previously got it to work by similar means and like you said, not very eligant. My example document was pretty simple. The real documents are much longer and have several of these sections. Lots of editing. I had hoped when we upgraded from Office 2002 to Office 2010 it would fix the problem but I guess not.


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## DaveA (Nov 16, 1999)

Remove the section break and add a "Page Break" ("Ctrl Enter") and then use the column settings.
Then when you need single column turn off the column and then another page break.

You will find that since you want the single to be a new page and then the 2 columns to be on a new page the page breaks will be the best.


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## WendyM (Jun 28, 2003)

Ripperdan, if I'm understanding correctly, you want the single column text and the two-column text to be on the same page, not different pages, correct? I found another way to do it which is still not awesome, but at least more elegant than my previous solution. These instructions are for Word 2007, not Word 2010, but hopefully it's similar enough to work.

Click the start of the section after the current break and go to the Page Layout tab and drop down the Page Setup options. On the Layout tab, change the Section start to "Continuous." Hope that's more useful.


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