Moving an Entire Page

Peter wonders if there is a way to move a whole page from one place in a document to another.

The short answer is no, Word has no built in way to move pages. The reason is because Word doesn't work with the concept of "pages" as we often think of them. You can see this if you open the same document on different computers. If the document contains straight text (no images or other objects), then it is very likely that the pages on one computer will be different than they are on another.

The reason for this is simple—Word defines the pages in the document on the fly, based on many different elements. The two primary elements that affect the "two different computers" scenario are fonts and printer drivers. If the two computers have different fonts available and they use different printer drivers, then the pages will flow differently on each of them.

Thus, in a Word document there is no real "page" to be able to move. Instead, the program allows you to select text, copy or cut it to the Clipboard, and then paste that text somewhere else. (You can, of course, copy, cut, and paste more than just text.) So, to move the contents of whatever you consider to be a page, all you need to do is to move the insertion point to the start of the text and then select everything to the end of the text. There are multiple ways to select that text once you move the insertion point to the beginning. Here are the three most common methods:

• Hold down the left mouse button as you drag the mouse to the ending point. When you release the mouse button, the text is selected.
• Hold down the Shift key as you click the left mouse button at the ending point.
• Hold down the Shift key as you use the arrow keys to expand or contact the selected text, as desired.

With the "page" selected, you can copy (Ctrl+C) or cut (Ctrl+X) the selection. Either way, the selection is stored in the Clipboard. You can then position the insertion point where you want the page moved and press Ctrl+V. The contents of the Clipboard are then inserted in the document wherever the insertion point was located.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13726) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.