How to Delete a Page in Microsoft Word

One of the most universally frustrating experiences in Microsoft Word is scrolling to the absolute bottom of your perfectly formatted resume, only to find a completely blank, empty page stubbornly clinging to the end of the document. You click on the empty page, jam the Backspace key fifty times in a row, and absolutely nothing happens. The page refuses to die.

This happens because Microsoft Word is fundamentally a text editor, not a page layout program (like Adobe InDesign). Word does not think in terms of “pages”; it thinks in terms of a continuous stream of characters. A blank page only exists because there are invisible formatting characters (like paragraph returns or page breaks) pushing the stream downward. To delete the page, you must reveal and delete those invisible characters.

Method 1: Reveal the Invisible Formatting Marks

You cannot delete what you cannot see. The first step to deleting a stubborn page is to turn on the engine that exposes Word’s hidden architecture.

1. Open your document in Microsoft Word.
2. Ensure you are on the Home tab on the top ribbon.
3. Look in the Paragraph section of the ribbon (near the center).
4. Look for a button that looks like a backward ‘P’ with a double stem. This is the Show/Hide ¶ button (also known as the Pilcrow icon).
5. Click the Pilcrow button.

Instantly, your document will be flooded with strange blue symbols. Every time you pressed the Spacebar, you will see a tiny dot. Every time you pressed Enter, you will see the backward ‘P’ symbol. This exposes the invisible code creating your blank page.

Method 2: Delete a Standard Blank Page

Now that you can see the invisible characters, killing the blank page is easy.

1. Scroll down to the blank page you want to delete.
2. Look at the blue symbols on that page. You will likely see five or six backward ‘P’ (¶) symbols stacked on top of each other. This means you accidentally hit the Enter key several times, and those invisible paragraph breaks cascaded down onto a new page.
3. Click your mouse cursor at the very bottom of the blank page (after the last ¶ symbol).
4. Press the Backspace key repeatedly until you have deleted every single ¶ symbol on that page.

Once the final invisible character is deleted, the blank page will instantly vanish, snapping the bottom of your document back up to the end of your actual text.

Method 3: Delete a Manual Page Break

Sometimes, hitting Backspace doesn’t work because the blank page was not caused by hitting the Enter key. It was caused by a rigid command called a “Page Break.”

1. With the Pilcrow (¶) button still turned on, look at the very bottom of the page immediately preceding the blank page.
2. You might see a long dotted line with the words Page Break resting in the middle of it. This is a hard-coded command forcing the document to jump to the next page.
3. Click your mouse cursor exactly at the beginning of the dotted line (directly before the word “Page”).
4. Press the Delete key on your keyboard.

The dotted line will vanish, and the blank page will be instantly deleted.

Method 4: Delete an Entire Page of Text Quickly

If you want to delete a page that actually has text on it (like removing Chapter 3 from a novel), you do not need to click and drag your mouse for ten seconds trying to highlight everything.

1. Click your mouse cursor anywhere on the page you want to delete.
2. Press Ctrl + G on your keyboard. (Or Option + Cmd + G on a Mac).
3. A small “Go To” dialog box will appear. Ensure the left-hand column is set to “Page.”
4. In the right-hand text box, type exactly this: \page (you must use the backward slash).
5. Click the Go To button.
6. Click Close.

Word has now perfectly highlighted every single character, image, and space on that specific page. Simply press the Delete key on your keyboard, and the entire page of content will be eradicated instantly.