How do I delete a section break completely?

[Guest]

I'm editing a document that currently has 81 sections. When I tried to
remove the first section by deleting the section break (next page), the page
break line is gone, but the document still reads as 'section 1' when I place
the cursor in front of the first word. When I move the cursor a couple of
characters, the document recognizes the section as 'section 2'. How do I
remove the first section to make the old 'section 2' the new 'section 1' and
have the old ‘section 3’ become the new ‘section 2’, and so on?

Thank You!

 

[Jezebel]

Display the document in normal view: this makes the breaks more obvious.
Then select and delete.

 

[Guest]

I deleted the section break in normal view, and I still got the problem I
described. Even though the break does not appear in normal view, the
document still displays as 'section 1' (the deleted section) in the first few
characters of the document and then displays as 'section 2' when I move the
cursor a few characters. I want to prevent this because there are a few more
sections I need to merge and having unnecessary sections may make the
document ackward to naviagte for subsequent users, if they want to search the
document by section.

Thanks again.

 

[Jezebel]

In that case, there is still a section break between where it says section 1
and section 2. Select across the divide and delete.

 

[Pat Garard]

EVERY document has a Section 1.
Extra Section Breaks create Section(s) 2 and up.
Look for Section Breaks as Jezebel suggests.

 

[CyberTaz]

Just sticking my nose in to interject another point that hasn't yet been
mentioned - so please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong ...

AFAIK, any Break - regardless of type - *breaks* the line at that point. IOW
you can't have a <text string><Break><text string> on a single line. No more
content can be on the same line following the Break.

The OP's description indicates that he is seeing this happen ("When I move
the cursor a couple of

characters, the document recognizes the section as 'section 2'."), which
suggests to me that he/she may be dealing with a corrupt document. That
seems to be even more likely due to the number of sections & the ? as to
what else might have been done in such a doc.

Perhaps a "Maggie" is in order???

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I have indeed seen "hidden" section breaks of this type, however. They can
be found by setting Section as the Browse Object, but the surest way to get
rid of them is to select a small amount of text on either side of the break
and delete the whole thing.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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