When editing a long enough Word document, you may want to find ways to reorder pages, moving some of them forward or backward even without having to use copy, cut and paste which can ruin the formatting of the document.
In Microsoft Word there is no way to reorder pages by moving them as you would with Powerpoint slides; in the latter each slide is a separate element from the others, while in Word a document is a single sliding piece. There are however a few ways to move and reorder pages in Microsoft Word the easy way .
READ ALSO: 10 text formatting tricks with Microsoft Word
1) Move pages in Word using the navigation pane
The navigation pane in Word is a useful tool for moving to certain places in the document without having to scroll through the text or search by eye. The use of the navigation pane works, however, only if the headings are used in a document, that is, if the various titles and subtitles have been marked with the appropriate tag.
From the View in Word tab, you can activate the navigation box to see, on the left side, a kind of summary with the headings shown. By selecting a heading and holding the mouse down, you can move it above or below in the list. When you drag a header while holding down the left mouse button, a dark line appears indicating the position where you can move it by releasing the mouse.
As mentioned above, to use this method, you need to format the text with headers. To do this, from the Home tab, select an important title or subtitle or phrase and choose the heading in the Styles section of the Word ribbon. Once the pages are moved, you can remove the headers if you don't want to keep them. The headings in the navigation pane are always listed in descending order, so Title 1 will be above Title 2, Title 3 and so on. To move an entire page or section, you must therefore move the top level heading for that section.
2) Move pages with cut and paste
If using the navigation pane is impractical, then you can use the good old cut and paste, which always works, even requires some attention. Then position the cursor at the beginning of the text of the page to be moved, then hold down the Shift key and press the Page Down key on the keyboard. This will select all the characters on a page. You can also select other pages by continuing to hold down Shift and pressing Page down again, until you select all.
Then press the CTRL + X keys together to cut the selected text, move the cursor to the point where you want to move the page and press the CTRL + V keys together to paste the newly cut text.
3) Move the pages in Word with the mouse
You can also cut and paste using the mouse, if you prefer: position the cursor at the beginning of the text to be moved, then press the left mouse button and drag the selection to the last word on the page. Right click on any part of the selected text and click Cut. Then go to the point where you want to move the button, right-click to find the Paste option.
If you use the cut and paste method, with the keyboard or with the mouse, it is important to be careful in the selection which, especially with the mouse, can be difficult. If you make a mistake, it is important to know that it is possible to cancel the operation just done by pressing the Cancel button in the Word toolbar or, more easily, by pressing the CTRL + Z key combination.
Furthermore, when you select text on Word, a menu appears above the document to facilitate the cut and paste operation. In particular, it is possible to paste in various ways, keeping the original formatting or as unformatted text.
If you are not very confident with the Cut operation, you can use the Copy option in its place and then, once you are sure that you have pasted the text at the right point, delete the copied part manually.
Another interesting way to paste a cut (or copied) page effectively and safely is through the Clipboard History tool on Windows 10. Move the cursor to the place in the Word document where you want to cut or copy the page, and use the Windows + V key combination to open the clipboard history. You can then click on an item in the history window to paste it.
READ ALSO: How to extract and reorder pages from a PDF
In Microsoft Word there is no way to reorder pages by moving them as you would with Powerpoint slides; in the latter each slide is a separate element from the others, while in Word a document is a single sliding piece. There are however a few ways to move and reorder pages in Microsoft Word the easy way .
READ ALSO: 10 text formatting tricks with Microsoft Word
1) Move pages in Word using the navigation pane
The navigation pane in Word is a useful tool for moving to certain places in the document without having to scroll through the text or search by eye. The use of the navigation pane works, however, only if the headings are used in a document, that is, if the various titles and subtitles have been marked with the appropriate tag.
From the View in Word tab, you can activate the navigation box to see, on the left side, a kind of summary with the headings shown. By selecting a heading and holding the mouse down, you can move it above or below in the list. When you drag a header while holding down the left mouse button, a dark line appears indicating the position where you can move it by releasing the mouse.
As mentioned above, to use this method, you need to format the text with headers. To do this, from the Home tab, select an important title or subtitle or phrase and choose the heading in the Styles section of the Word ribbon. Once the pages are moved, you can remove the headers if you don't want to keep them. The headings in the navigation pane are always listed in descending order, so Title 1 will be above Title 2, Title 3 and so on. To move an entire page or section, you must therefore move the top level heading for that section.
2) Move pages with cut and paste
If using the navigation pane is impractical, then you can use the good old cut and paste, which always works, even requires some attention. Then position the cursor at the beginning of the text of the page to be moved, then hold down the Shift key and press the Page Down key on the keyboard. This will select all the characters on a page. You can also select other pages by continuing to hold down Shift and pressing Page down again, until you select all.
Then press the CTRL + X keys together to cut the selected text, move the cursor to the point where you want to move the page and press the CTRL + V keys together to paste the newly cut text.
3) Move the pages in Word with the mouse
You can also cut and paste using the mouse, if you prefer: position the cursor at the beginning of the text to be moved, then press the left mouse button and drag the selection to the last word on the page. Right click on any part of the selected text and click Cut. Then go to the point where you want to move the button, right-click to find the Paste option.
If you use the cut and paste method, with the keyboard or with the mouse, it is important to be careful in the selection which, especially with the mouse, can be difficult. If you make a mistake, it is important to know that it is possible to cancel the operation just done by pressing the Cancel button in the Word toolbar or, more easily, by pressing the CTRL + Z key combination.
Furthermore, when you select text on Word, a menu appears above the document to facilitate the cut and paste operation. In particular, it is possible to paste in various ways, keeping the original formatting or as unformatted text.
If you are not very confident with the Cut operation, you can use the Copy option in its place and then, once you are sure that you have pasted the text at the right point, delete the copied part manually.
Another interesting way to paste a cut (or copied) page effectively and safely is through the Clipboard History tool on Windows 10. Move the cursor to the place in the Word document where you want to cut or copy the page, and use the Windows + V key combination to open the clipboard history. You can then click on an item in the history window to paste it.
READ ALSO: How to extract and reorder pages from a PDF
