Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. 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: Keeping Tables on One Page.
As you develop more complex Word documents, it is inevitable that you will add tables. Most tables are relatively short and can easily fit on a page. Because of this, it can be disconcerting to have a page break occur in the middle of a table. Here's an approach that has always worked for me:
Figure 1. The Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box.
Now you need to repeat the same steps, with two minor variations. First, in step 1 select all the rows except the last one. Then, in step 5, make sure the Keep With Next check box is selected. This is necessary (performing this step with the last row not selected) so that the table stays together as a unit, rather than the table staying with the paragraph that follows it.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12975) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Keeping Tables on One Page.
Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!
Need to adjust the width of a bunch of table columns according to what is in the columns? Word provides a tool to do ...
Discover MoreFormatting tables can be very time consuming. When you get a document from another person, you can spend a lot of time ...
Discover MoreIf you've adjusted the height of your table and the rows within the table, you might want to later return all those rows ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2016-10-29 05:09:26
This article is NOT correct. If the table will not fit on the page, Word will ignore one or the other of the "Keep with next" or "Keep lines together settings"
You can prevent a row from breaking across a page by unchecking the "Allow row to break across page" setting in the Table Properties dialog and by doing that with a one-row table, you can force it to be kept on one page, but if there is too much text to fit, the excess will not be visible.
Word will ignore either the Keep lines together" or the "Keep with next" settings for text in paragraphs that are not inside a table and the text will wrap to the next page, regardless of those settings if it will not all fit on one page.
2016-10-28 13:33:07
Bruce Amsden
This tip doesn't seem to work when there is a footer at the bottom of the page where the table is splitting (in Word 2007). Any ideas for how to get around this?
2016-06-02 08:00:05
Mark
Great tip. Many thanks.
2016-05-12 06:53:08
Andrew
Tried this on 2013, I'm afraid it didn't work.
Cheers
Andrew
2015-07-29 11:01:51
Susan Leonard
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Works like a charm.
2015-06-27 02:13:27
Neil Chadborn
Thanks! This has bugged me for years. I can't believe it is so labourious to do what should be a simple option (in the table formatting box)
2015-01-16 13:19:54
Christina Pilz
This tip was awesome and quick, thank you.
2014-12-31 20:02:20
Andreas Rejbrand
@Doug: I have always used this technique myself, and it has always worked for me. Notice that the article is about tables that DO fit on a single page. If the table start very close to the end of one page, however, you might get a page break within the table, which is bad. Using the paragraph options as described in this article, the table will move to the top of the next page (where it will fit by assumption).
2014-09-21 10:04:59
Doug Robbins
This article is not correct.
See comments on the corresponding article for earlier versions of Word by clicking on the link at the note at the top of the article.
2014-05-22 11:48:38
Benj
Thanks for the tip!
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2019 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. 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: 
Comments