Hi there; sometimes we need different footers, headers, pagination, watermarks and so on. in this situation, when we try to, for example, insert the second watermark, Microsoft Word will automatically change the watermark for all pages. But why?
In this article, we are going to answer this question and see how to unlink and divide a document into sections.
Divide a document into sections in Microsoft Word
By default, a Microsoft Word document has one section containing all the pages, and they are linked together. And when pages are linked together, they inherit some properties like page setups, headers, footers, paginations and like that.
So now you know if you want to change a property for just one page, you must divide and unlink the page from others.
Let’s divide and separate our document into two sections with an example.
For example, we want two different paginations, so we need two separate sections. If we don’t separate them, when we want to add the second pagination, Microsoft Word will also apply it to the first pagination.
Divide a document into Two sections
In this example, I’m going to set one pagination for the first two pages and another for the other.
Now, if you open the Header or footer, you can see your document divided into two sections. So now everything is ok, and we need to unlink these sections.
Tip: to open the Header or footer, Right-click on the Header and click on the Edit Header, and it opens the Header. For more information, visit our article: Header and Footer in Microsoft Word.
How to Unlink sections in Microsoft Word
When you open the Header and footer, the Header & Footer Tool(Design tab) will appears on the ribbon.
Tip: Now I want to add my pagination on the page 3 footer, and I unlink the footer, but it’s better to unlink the Header and Footer from the previous page.
That’s it, and now if I add a pagination for page one, it just applies to page 2, and page 3 doesn’t inherit the pagination. And I can add another pagination for page 3 and the next pages.
How to divide just one page from others
In this situation, you want just page number 5 to have different styles, for example, page size. So we should separate page 5 from the previous and also the next pages.
Look at the picture below. The page number is connected to page number 4 and page number 6, and we should break and divide them to separate pages 5.
Helpful article: how to change page size in Microsoft Word.