How to Change the Page Order in Word
By Kevin Lee
After creating a large Word document that contains multiple pages, you may need to shift pages around if they're not in the correct order. You won't find a “Move Page” button on Microsoft Word’s ribbon, but the application does give you the ability to reorder pages. Learning to display a document’s formatting symbols can help you do this quickly using your mouse or your finger if you have a touchscreen device.
Show Formatting Symbols
Open a multipage document in Microsoft Word.
Tap or click the ribbon's "Home" tab.
Tab or click the "Show/Hide" button in the Paragraph section to display the document's formatting symbols. The symbols will help you identify page breaks.
Scroll to the top of the page you'd like to move and then scroll down until you see the Page Break symbol. Remember what that symbol looks like. It contains the words "Page Break" and it can help you identify the bottom of any document page.
Reorder Using the Mouse
Scroll back to the top of the page you want to move and click the first character on the page. Word positions the cursor at that location.
Hold down your left mouse button and drag the cursor down to select all the text on the page including the Page Break symbol. Press "Ctrl-X" to cut the text from the page.
Click the bottom of the page where you'd like to paste the text and press "Ctrl-V" to paste it into that location. Repeat this process for each page you'd like to move.
Reorder Using Your Finger
Scroll to the top of the page you'd like to move and tap the page's first character to select it. Word displays a handle on either side of the selection.
Tap the right handle and drag your finger down to select everything on the page including the Page Break symbol.
Press "Ctrl-X" to cut the text you selected from the page. Tap the bottom of the page where you wish to paste the text and press “Ctrl-V.” Word pastes the text into that location. Move additional pages using these steps.
Tips
If you move a page to the bottom of the document, that page will contain a Page Break symbol that adds one extra blank page to the document. Select that symbol and delete it if you want to remove that extra page.
Tap or click the “Show/Hide” button again to remove the document’s formatting symbols. This button is a toggle that shows the symbols when they’re not visible and hides them when they are.
If you have two or more consecutive pages to move, save time by selecting all those pages at once, cutting them using “Ctrl-X” and performing a single paste operation in the new location where you want to move those pages.
References
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Writer Bio
After majoring in physics, Kevin Lee began writing professionally in 1989 when, as a software developer, he also created technical articles for the Johnson Space Center. Today this urban Texas cowboy continues to crank out high-quality software as well as non-technical articles covering a multitude of diverse topics ranging from gaming to current affairs.