If you have ever worked on large documents in Google Docs or any other word processing platform, you would know that they can be cumbersome and very hard to handle especially when not broken up properly.
One way to solve this problem is by breaking up the document into small separate pages with individual sections on each page.
If you use Google Docs as your primary document editor and you’re looking for a way to separate pages on your document in the platform, then you’re on the right page.
In this article, you will learn how to separate pages in Google Docs in a few easy steps. So whether you’re looking to break up your report or presentation into various pages and sections, we’ve got you covered.
Separating Pages On Google Docs: Quick Steps
- Open the Google Document.
- Place your cursor where you want the current page to end.
- Go to the menu bar.
- Select “Insert” > “Break” > “Page break“
Why Aren’t Pages Separated On Google Docs?
On Google Docs, new pages are automatically created when you reach the end of the current page you’re typing on and unless you need to add new pages before exhausting the space on the current page, you don’t need to do anything for a new page to be created.
That said, if you notice that pages on your document in Google Docs are not automatically separated, then there may be something wrongly configured on your document.
The first thing to check is if you have the “Pageless” mode feature enabled on the document. Also if you have not enabled “Show print layout” on the document, then you will not see the usual gap that separates pages on Google Docs.
How To Separate Pages On Google Docs (Step-By-Step Guide)
There are a couple of ways to separate pages on your document in your Google Docs and the method to consider will depend on what you intend to achieve and what caused the issue in the first place.
To separate pages on Google Docs, you can either disable pageless mode, insert a page break, or enable the “Show print layout” option from the Google Docs menu bar.
Here are the methods to separate pages on Google Docs.
Method 1: Disable Pageless mode.
As we mentioned earlier, if you have the Pageless mode enabled on your document either intentionally or unintentionally when creating the document, you won’t be able to have separate pages on the document.
All pages will be joined together (or connected) in a single (extended) page and the document can only be divided into “sections”.
To fix this, you can simply disable the Pageless mode to get separate pages back on the document.
Here is how to disable pageless mode on Google Docs easily.
Step 1: Open the Google Docs Page Setup dialog.
First, we will need to access the Google Docs Page Setup dialog as this is where we can make any changes to how pages on the document will look.
To do this, go to the Google Docs menu bar then select “File” > “Page Setup“.
Step 2: Switch from “Pageless” to “Pages”.
Now, if your document was initially on the Pageless design, then on the Page Setup dialog, the “Pageless” tab should be selected.
To change this, simply switch the tabs from “Pageless” to “Pages“.
Step 3: Select “Whole document” in the “Apply to” section then click “OK”.
After switching from “Pageless” to “Pages”, you should see some pages (and paper) customization options.
Go to the “Apply to” section then choose “Whole document“. This will ensure that the “Pages” document format is added to the whole document and not just the current selected page.
When that’s done, simply go to the bottom of the page, then click the “OK” button to save your selection, and close the Page Setup dialog.
After that, you should now see that your document has been separated into different pages and you can continue editing as you normally would.
Method 2: Insert A Page Break.
In some cases, your document may not be in the pageless mode and you just want to break a page and create a new one just beneath it to continue typing. You can achieve this easily on Google Docs using a feature called “Page Breaks“.
On Google Docs, Page Breaks are simply formatting elements that allow users to indicate the end of one page and the beginning of another within a document.
They can be used to separate pages on the platform and there are different types of page breaks available on Google Docs. For this guide, we will be utilizing manual page breaks to separate pages within our document.
Here is how to insert a page break in Google Docs.
Step 1: Place your cursor where you want to insert the page break.
Before actually inserting a page break into your document, you will need to first place your cursor on the exact spot where you want the current page to end.
To do this, simply move your text cursor using your physical mouse device or trackpad then left-click on the spot where you want to end the current page.
After placing your cursor, go to the Google Docs menu bar then select “Insert” > “Break” > “Page break“
Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Enter (Windows) or Command + return (for Mac computers) to insert a page break in Google Docs.
Once you have inserted the page break, you will notice that text or block of text after the page break will now appear on a new page just below the page where the break was inserted.
And that’s how you can separate pages on Google Docs using page breaks.
Method 3: Enable “Show print layout”.
If you notice that your document is only showing lines instead of separating the pages, then that means that you don’t have the print layout enabled on your document.
To fix this, you can simply enable print layout and your pages will be separated like they normally would. This will also restore the original layout of your document.
Enabling the print layout option is quite easy. All you have to do is go to the Google Docs menu bar then click “View” and select “Show print layout” to enable print layout on the document.
After that, pages on your document should now be separated as they normally would.
Wrapping Up
Knowing how to separate pages in Google Docs is a great way to enhance the organization, readability, and professionalism of your documents on the platform.
Throughout this article, we have discussed three different methods you can use to separate pages on the Google Docs word-processing platform.
These methods include disabling pageless page format (if you have that enabled), inserting manual page breaks, and finally, enabling the “Show print layout” option from the Google Docs menu bar.
