How to Start a New Section on an Odd Page Number in Word 2013

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When working on a long document or a book in Word, it’s common to divide the document into sections or chapters. A common practice is to start each new section or chapter on an odd page. This is easily accomplished using sections in Word.

We’ll show you how to add a new section break for a new odd page at the start of a section. If you already have sections in your document, don’t worry. We’ll also show you how to convert current section breaks into odd page section breaks.

To insert a new odd page section break into your document, put the cursor at the start of the first line of your new section or chapter and click the Page Layout tab on the ribbon.

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In the Page Setup section, click Breaks and select Odd Page from the drop-down menu.

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A Odd Page Section Break is inserted into your document. If you don’t see the break, it may be at the end of the previous paragraph. Put the cursor at the end of the paragraph and press Enter to move the section break to the next line.

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As we mentioned earlier, you may have already inserted section breaks into your document. You can preserve your current section breaks by converting them to Odd Page breaks.

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To convert a section break to an Odd Page section break, put the cursor in the section you want to change. Click the Page Layout tab (if it’s not already active) and click the Page Setup button in the lower-right corner of the Page Setup section to open the Page Setup dialog box.

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On the Page Setup dialog box, click the Layout tab. Select Odd page from the Section start drop-down list and click OK.

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Notice that the section break changes to an Odd Page section break.

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Word will automatically add a blank page at the end of a section or chapter to make sure the next section or chapter starts on an odd page.

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