I am working on a long document, and I have noticed that many of the pages in the Word Document have an errant paragraph mark at the start of the page.



Is there a way to remove this without needing to do it manually?

It depends on why the errant return is there. Generally you could do a search and replace for two consecutive returns and replace them with one but that may not solve your issue depending on what is in the document.

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Could you post a portion of that document, showing the problem, as an attachment.


Attach a Sample File Demonstrating the Problem - Here's How

Hopefully the attached screenshot helps everyone who is trying to help me out a bit.

Thanks in advance for all the replies so far.

Attached Images

Errant return.jpg (66.0 KB, 8 views)

Manual page break.
Instead, use page break before formatting in the paragraph you want to start a new page. This is often done using the Heading 1 style.
The Importance of Styles in Microsoft Word

Basic Concepts of Microsoft Word - from Shauna Kelly

Thanks for your reply. I am even more lost though now. I have tried using Styles (which I have never done before) to remove paragraph breaks from the start of pages, but I have no idea how to go about doing this.

Even though I have a 9000 page document I'm beginning to think it may just be easier to manually remove them all.

Word hasn't really made the whole Styles thing very user friendly, at least I cannot seem to get it to work.

Is there any other way to achieve what I want to do?

You can remove them all instantly by doing a Find and Replace
Find: ^m
Replace with: ^p

This would find every manual pagre break and replace it with a paragraph mark.

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Thanks for your thoughts. The issue is having an errant paragraph at the start of each page. I want to keep the page breaks.

If I just replaced the page breaks with another paragraph break I don't think it would help.

OK, in that case, first you need to get rid of spaces in front of paragraph marks since that is probably inconsistent in your doc.
Find: ^w^p
Replace with: ^p

Then you can find page break/return combos and swap their order
Find: ^m^p
Replace with: ^p^m

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

You have a huge project. You are using Microsoft Word to do it. You do not understand the tool you are using. Word is deceptively complex for big projects.

First, do read both articles I linked previously. The one from Shauna Kelly is the start of a short series of short pages that go through basic concepts. Word is not intuitive.

Work with a copy.
Start by doing the following in the copy:

1. Replace ^m with ^p
2. Replace ^p^p with ^p
3. Select all the text and format it using the Normal style

You are now at your starting point with a basic document for formatting the document using Styles.

Do not edit your document at all in the browser or mobile versions of Word.

Read the article: Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly

Then read the article: Tips for Understanding Styles in Word by Shauna Kelly
If you do not have a grasp of styles, Word is going to confuse the heck out of you! Extra (optional) reading on styles:

• Managing Word Styles by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word

Chances are that you want to have page numbering and automatic paragraph numbering in your document.

• Page Numbers in Word 97-2003
• Page Number Galleries
• More on automatic numbering to follow. That is a topic for a book, itself!

Chances are that you have running headers and footers that you want to reflect something about the current contents.

• StyleRef Field
• Numbering Front Matter by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• Header/Footer Settings Recap

Chances are that you want at least one Table of Contents and an Index.

• How to create a table of contents in Microsoft Word by Shauna Kelly
• TOC Tips and Tricks by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• Insert a Caption
• Insert a Table of Figures
• Indices - Complex Documents

Multilevel numbering in Word is easy to mess up. It always has been.

Automatic Paragraph Numbering all starts with the Define New List Style Dialog.
You use that to create and name a list style, within that dialog, when you format numbering you go to the Define New MultiLevel List Dialog. The key is to assign a separate existing paragraph style to each level of numbering. The styles can be built-in styles- or custom styles.

If you use automatic paragraph numbering or bullets read Shauna Kelly's directions on numbering and bullets. Start with How to create numbered headings or outline numbering and her parallel page How to control bullets. For large documents you must follow these directions or you will lose your hair!
(Mac version: Outline Numbering in Word for macOS - Best Practices - Brandwares). For styles attached this way, you also control the left indents through the Define New MultiLevel List dialog not the Ruler or the Modify Style dialog.

You first want the paragraph styles existing in your document. These can be built-in styles or custom styles or a mix of the two. You can, if you want, modify their formatting later. Then you go to the Define New List Style (Not Define New MultiLevel List! You will get to that dialog in the process, though.)

This may seem a bit convoluted at first, but it really is not. Just follow the steps. Shauna Kelly's instructions use the built-in heading styles, but you can use any existing paragraph styles including your custom styles. There are, however advantages to using the built-in heading styles when you create a Table of Contents. Here are some more advantages: Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly Note, you can modify these built-in styles to look exactly the way you want.

You want to do this even if what you want is a single-level list if you want the most control over your list.

Videos on this
https://youtu.be/niD6VXPvAyU?t=487
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICWOeIhsR4

The basic idea is that the numbering is set using the Define MultiLevel List dialog with each numbering level being attached to an existing paragraph style. Once you have this set up, you should not use the buttons for numbering in the Ribbon but rather apply the appropriate style for that level.

You can save a document with this as a template for future documents if you want so you will not need to do this every time.

Thanks so much for all of that no doubt valuable information. I have a bit of reading to do!

I went beyond your original question because it seems you have a lot of work ahead of you and it is easy to put problems into Word that just make everything harder. I did not mean to overwhelm you. Start with the first two links I gave you. Look at the others as something comes up.