Starting Chapters on Odd-Numbered Pages

One of the formatting features of Word allows you to force your headings (if you use styles) to begin on a new page. What if you want the heading to begin on an odd-numbered page, however? You can insert section breaks that force the next section to start on an odd page, as has been discussed in other issues of WordTips. But what if you don't want to use section breaks?

Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to start a heading on an odd page, based solely on the formatting you apply to the heading. This means you will need to insert some sort of special indicator that tells Word you want to jump to an odd page. If you don't want to use section breaks, you can cleverly force Word to an odd page by using field codes. The following compound field will force an extra page break if the field occurs on an even page:

{IF {=MOD({PAGE},2)}}=0 "<page break>" ""}

When you are building this field structure, make sure you replace <page break> with an actual, physical page break. You do this by following these steps:

1. Selecting <page break> (what's between the quotation marks) in the above field code.
2. Display the Layout or Page Layout tabs of the ribbon, depending on which version of Word you are using.
3. Click on the Breaks tool in the Page Setup group.
4. Select Page from the resulting drop-down list.

When Word encounters the field, it determines the current page number and divides it by 2. If the remainder is 0 (meaning this is an even-numbered page), then the page break is inserted, thereby forcing your text to the next odd-numbered page. If the remainder is 1 (meaning this is an odd-numbered page), then nothing is inserted.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12601) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Starting Chapters on Odd-Numbered Pages.