Forgive me if I don't know all the correct terminology but I'll do my best. I've used MS Word for years, but that doesn't mean I know a lot about it.

I am trying to format a document for publication. When everything is right, I'll generate a .pdf to upload.

I've set my page size, margins and page numbers. I haven't used the automatic table of contents because it's more trouble than it's worth but that's a different issue. I just mentioned this in case a TOC could be a problem.

Page 5 is the first line of actual text after all the intro pages and TOC. Word drops the last two lines of text on page 5 and puts it on the next page even thought there is room for them. This unnecessarily splits a four-line paragraph in the middle. If I add lines above the first page to start the text on page 6, the two lines are properly included on the page and everything is good except then my text starts on an even page. Throughout the rest of the document, I don't see anywhere this happens again.

It's like the page margins on page 5 are two lines shorter but that isn't the case. The side ruler shows all pages the same.

When I un-hide the formatting symbols, there isn't anything on that page to indicate a problem.

I don't want two blank pages before the text starts. What is the correction for this? Many thanks for your help.