Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Preventing Straggling Heads.

Preventing Straggling Heads

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 7, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016


5

There are certain paragraphs that naturally belong with another paragraph. For instance, section headings belong with the paragraphs that follow them, a signature line belongs with the explanation line that may be after it, and a figure belongs with the caption that may follow it. Word makes it easy to keep certain paragraph pairings together. To format paragraphs so they stay together, use the following steps:

  1. Position the insertion point in the first paragraph of the pair you want to keep together.
  2. Make sure the Home of the ribbon is displayed.
  3. Click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Paragraph group. Word displays the Paragraph dialog box.
  4. Display the Line and Page Breaks tab. (See Figure 1.)
  5. Figure 1. The Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box.

  6. Make sure the Keep with Next check box is selected.
  7. Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7118) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Preventing Straggling Heads.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is 8 - 2?

2020-08-07 10:18:46

Allen

R -- not a clumsy title, as "straggling head" is a typographical term. It is what it is.

-Allen


2020-08-07 09:59:42

David Gardner

Or, style your headings, and modify the heading styles to have the paragraph attribute of Keep with next


2020-08-07 07:31:14

R.

What a clumsy title!


2016-07-27 08:47:04

Lisa Herider

To make this happen all the time, edit the style sheet to incorporate this paragraph change(s) in the actual style.


2016-07-25 03:12:48

Karyn

However - be careful when using "Keep with next" as a default in Normal font style.
This will then also apply to tables, and give an orphan table heading, rather than breaking tables across pages.

:)
kP


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