How to Rearrange the order of pages in Word on Windows and Mac

bilal 1983

7 months ago

How to Rearrange the order of pages in Word on Windows and Mac.

Word has many powerful features that allow you to organize documents into sections, pages, and even an outline of the entire document structure. But reordering pages in Word is not an easy feature to find or use. Here are some keyboard shortcuts for changing the page order in Word.

It’s worth noting that to change the page order in Word on Mac, you should go to Method 3 (Outline View) mentioned below.

Copy and Paste Is Annoying

You are probably already using a copy and paste approach to navigate pages in Word. Basically, this is what most people do. Maintaining consistent formatting and pages is difficult and complex.

This approach involves selecting entire pages and then pressing Ctrl + X on your keyboard to cut the selected text. Alternatively, you can right-click the selected text and choose Cut.

This will delete all of the selected text and move all other pages of the document to the top. Go to the page where you want to paste what you just deleted. Place your cursor at the end of the last page and press Ctrl + V on your keyboard, or right-click and select Paste (or one of the Paste options).

This will insert the selected text where the cursor is and move all other pages in the document downward.

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This sounds like the easiest way to reorder pages in Word, but it comes with a long list of problems.

Adding spaces at the end of pages can change formatting.
The next page after where you pasted may not start where you wanted.
The pagination may be confused.

These problems are not always easy to fix. Fortunately, there are better ways to rearrange the page order in Word.

Method 1: Rearrange Pages in Word with the Navigation Pane

One of the quickest ways to view and reorder all pages in Word is to use the built-in navigation bar.

To enable this, select the View menu and check the box next to the navigation bar.

Now, on the left side of the document, you will see it sorted by title.

If your document is well-formatted, where every page or section you want to move starts with a heading, then this is a great way to move sections.

Just press and hold the title you want to move and drag it up or down on the navigation bar. Release the mouse button wherever you want to move this section.

Usually, if you choose to move the highest level headings, that moves everything (including your own subheadings).

Note. This only works if you have a document formatted with one heading per section. If you use a lot of subheadings or the headings are numbered, you can mix up most of the original organization in the document using this approach.

Method 2: Use Page Breaks to Easily Rearrange Pages in Word

Now that we’ve covered the most basic techniques that almost everyone knows and uses, let’s take a look at some of the more advanced ways to reorder pages in Word.

One of the best ways to do this is with page breaks.

Page breaks cause page breaks to occur at a specific point in the document. The next page will always start with a new page at appropriate intervals.

To do this, place your cursor at the beginning of the section you want to start on a new page. Select the Insert menu and select Page Break from the ribbon.

You will see the next section move completely to a completely new page.

If you ever want to see where you placed page breaks within a document, select the main menu and click the paragraph icon. This will show you all formatting codes like page break or section break.

You can now use any of the reordering techniques described in the previous two sections to copy and paste pages or headings, but now when you move objects around, you don’t lose the original formatting. With a page break, all original formatting is preserved along with the copy and paste.

Method 3: Rearrange Pages in Word Using Outline View

Here’s another nifty trick to organize your pages a bit with headings. As noted earlier, this method also works for Word on Mac. If you want to change the order of the pages, make sure the document has headings (for example, H1, etc.).

Select the View menu and change the View to Outline.

This will switch to structure view and take you to the Outlining menu.

You will see an outline of the entire document by headings and subheadings. Hover over the + icon to the left of the title. Your mouse icon will change to a move pointer.

Press and hold the mouse, and then drag it up or down the path wherever you want this section to move. When you release the mouse button, you will see a line appear where the section will go.

Release the mouse button to place the entire section in a new location. It looks a little different on a Mac, but the principle is the same.

This is very similar to using the navigation bar, except that the layout is cleaner and it is now much easier to move the sections and subsections around the way you like.

When you’re done reorganizing your document, simply select Close Frame View from the ribbon.

Keeping Pages Organized in Word

The above techniques can help you reorder pages in words without creating clutter in your document. Just make sure you use the formatting features in Word, such as page breaks or section breaks, to preserve your formatting and pagination.

If you have all of these, in most cases any of the approaches described in this article will work. But remember to double check every time you change the page order so you know everything is still laid out as you intended.

Fortunately, any of the above methods will renumber your headings appropriately depending on where you drag the page. So you don’t have to worry about fixing headers when moving pages.

How To Outline Text In Photoshop

If you’re looking for other tips for working with Microsoft Word, be sure to check out 12 Helpful Microsoft Word Tips and Tricks.

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