Tiplet: Deleting an extra page (Word)

Over the past few years, my clients have frequently reported difficulty deleting an extra page that appears at the end of a document – typically a pleading.  Sometimes the problem involves a table (whether an actual columnar table containing data or a single-cell table used for a signature block) that falls at the end of what should be the last page.  The most obvious solution, removing the extra page by positioning the cursor after the table and pressing Delete or Backspace, doesn’t work as expected.

There are a couple of possible solutions, depending on the exact situation.  Although highly counterintuitive, this one usually works:

With your cursor at the very top of the additional page, open the Paragraph dialog by either right-clicking and choosing “Paragraph” or clicking the dialog launcher (the small gray square with an arrow on the diagonal) at the bottom of the Paragraph group on the Home tab.  When the Paragraph dialog opens, locate the Spacing section (about halfway down the Indents and Spacing tab), then click the “Line and Spacing” drop-down and select “Exactly.”  Next, under “At” – and this is the critical step – set the number of points (by using the spinner arrows or simply typing the number in the box) to 1 (one) pt.  Yes, one!

Keep in mind that points measure the height of the characters; that there are 72 points in a vertical inch; and that 12 points, while not the same as true single spacing, is approximately one line.  Setting the line spacing of that extra page (really just an extra empty paragraph that has spilled onto the next page) to 1 point usually shrinks the empty paragraph sufficiently to pull it up to the previous page.

This less-than-obvious remedy has helped many of my clients resolve an extremely vexing issue.  I hope it helps you, too!