How do I remove a table embedded in a Microsoft Word document?

Question

I have the unfortunate task of debugging a large Microsoft Word document that has unwanted page breaks after some paragraphs. The spaces in question previously contained an image, but remained after the image was removed. The "show/hide formatting characters" button shows nothing out of the ordinary, the paragraph settings don't have anything unusual in them, and there are no manual break (^m) characters in the document. I have noticed what appears to be a hidden table however.

If I start with the cursor immediately at the end of the paragraph before the break, and press the right arrow key, it jumps to the beginning of the paragraph after the break, and the delete and backspace keys will not delete the object. However, if I double click in the middle of the break, it will display a cursor centered in the page and allow me to type. Additionally, if I click the button that draws a border around the current object, it will draw a border around the line of text like you would see with a table cell. When I have the cursor in this cell though, Word does not display any table editing options, and I have no way of selecting the border around the object and deleting it.

Has anybody experienced this problem before? Is it a table that has been embedded in the document? Most importantly, how do I delete this unwanted page break?

Answer 1

Cursor to the paragraph mark before the mystery object. Press Enter to add another paragraph, also before the mystery object. Now go to the paragraph after the object and insert a new empty paragraph at the beginning - before the text. You now have empty paragraphs before and after the object to be deleted.

Starting from the first empty paragraph mark, hold down shift and cursor down to the second empty paragraph, highlighting the two paragraphs and every thing in between. Click the "cut" button on the Ribbon (the scissors icon). That should delete everything you don't want.