4.7. Dividing Your Document into SectionsThe longer and more complex your document is, the more likely it is to contain different sections . Word's sections don't have anything to do with how you've divided your document with headings and subheadings . They're electronic divisions you create by adding section breaks to your document. Section breaks are a close cousin to page breaks, except that a section can contain any number of pages. More important, each section in a Word document can have its own page formatting. Many people work with Word for years without ever really understanding Word's sections. But breaking your document into different sections gives you a lot more flexibility within the same document. For example:
4.7.1. Inserting Section BreaksAs you can see from the previous list, sections are all about page formatting, so it's not surprising that the section break commands are found under the Page Layout tab (Page Layout Page Setup Breaks or Alt+P, B). When you click the Breaks button in the Page Setup group , the menu is divided into two parts : Page Breaks and Section Breaks. Note: When you use the Breaks menu (Figure 4-19), remember that the breaks shown at the top aren't section breaks. They're just text formatting breaks like page breaks and column breaks. The commands on the bottom are section breaks, as advertised. Section breaks have two major distinctions. There are Next Page breaks, which create a new page for the new section, and there are Continuous breaks, which place a divider mark in the text with no visible interruption. Everything below that mark is in a new section. You use a Next Page break when you're changing the paper size or orientation. Or you can use a Next Page break if you want each chapter to start on a new page. You use the Continuous break to change the number of columns or the margins in your document in the middle of a page. The other two optionsEven Page and Odd Pageare just variations on Next Page. They create section breaks and start the new section on the next even or odd page. For example, you use this option to make sure that all your chapters begin on a right-hand page (like the ones in this book). Here's how to insert a section break and change the paper orientation for the new section from Portrait to Landscape.
In Print Layout view, you see how your document looks with section breaks inserted. In Draft view, section breaks appear in your document as dotted lines. The line doesn't print, but it's visible on your computer screen (Figure 4-20).
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