How To Reorder Pages In Microsoft Word?

When you create a new document in Microsoft Word, the lower pages will be on your left and the upper pages will be on the right side. And, by default, this order doesn’t change even if you insert a new page into a document. This can be quite annoying if you have to move several pages around because they won’t go to the position they should take. To solve this, we'll need some easy steps with simple instructions:

While you are typing dozens and dozens of pages for a document, you may suddenly need to make rearrangements.

Even if it is just exchanging the contents of one page to another, it is not as easy as dragging the slides like in a PowerPoint document. In Microsoft Word, the task for rearranging or reordering pages can be done in two ways.

Importance of Page Order

The pages you see on textbooks or e-books are done by using the feature “Header” or “Footer”. This is convenient since the header or footer is a part of the page but is independent of the changes happening to the main document.

The header and footer features can be simply accessed by double-clicking the top or bottom portion of the page. Another tab will appear on the top focusing on headers and footers only. To add page numbers, locate the “Page Number” button on the upper-left part of the window.

Now, your pages are numbered throughout the document. If you need reordering, it will not be possible to change the page number only. You need to manually transfer or exchange the contents of the pages through the two methods presented below.

How to Reorder Pages?

1).  Using Navigation Pane

Once a document becomes too long, locating the pages needed to be reordered can be taxing. To avoid such a time-consuming method, you can utilize the “Navigation” pane. Note that this can be applied if the “Heading Style” is currently used (the document has headers and headings applied).

1. From the top of the Word window, select the “View” tab.
2. Locate the “Show” portion and check the box of the “Navigation Pane”. Once checked, it will appear like the image below.
   
3. Once the Navigation Pane appears on the left side of the window, hover the mouse on the “Headings” section and click on it. A list of headers and sub-headers will appear like an outline.
4. To rearrange the order, select the header and place wherever you need it to place by dragging along the outline. The dark thick line is an indication where the transferred portion is to be placed.
5. If your document does not have any headings and you want to transfer it via Navigation Pane, you can assign certain headings for one portion (origin) and another (destination). Once the headings are assigned, you can perform the said method and afterward, delete or clear the formatting of those words made into headings.

2).  Using Copy/Cut–Paste Method

This method is probably the most rigorous transferring or rearranging method. The more content you need to transfer, the more careful you have to be. This method can be done by using a keyboard, mouse, or both.

1. Highlight the content you want to move.
2. After highlighting, you can either move by cutting the content (ctrl+x) or copying (ctrl+c) them first before deleting them.
3. Then, go to the page or portion you want the content transferred and paste the content (ctrl+v) there. The cut-paste method may be faster but the copy-paste method is safer content-wise.
   

Summary: Reorder pages in Microsoft Word

• Open your document in Microsoft Word.
• Click on the tab at the top of the screen that says 'Layout.'
• A menu will drop down and you will see a tab that says 'Breaks.'
• Click on the subsection labeled 'Next Page.'
• This will insert a break at the place in your document where you have selected.
• Pressing this button will split up your document so that it starts a new page where ever you click it, regardless of where that spot is in the text.
• If you want to reorder parts of your document, simply cut and paste the section that you want to move to a different location.
• The important part is insuring that each section starts on its own page so that when you rearrange them in a new order, they all stay on their own page.
• When you cut and paste sections to rearrange them, never use word's 'copy' and 'paste' functions, as these can seem to work but actually do not copy fully formatted documents for pasting successfully.
• You should always use the keyboard shortcuts for cutting and pasting - Select Section > Control+X >

Conclusion

In case you lose control as you are rearranging the page orders, you can go back to where you initially started by the use of the “Undo” button.For easy selection of the copied items to be pasted, you can utilize the “Clipboard History”. The task of reordering pages may be a bit inconvenient, but it doesn’t mean it is not achievable.