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How to remove section breaks without losing the data

Answered
Request Demo

I am trying to remove the sections my document has split into but I cannot find how to do it without losing the data. Clicking remove section break does not actually get rid of the section totally in the document panel

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Comments

8 comments

Date Votes
  • Mike
    • Edited

    Hi David!

    Thanks for the question. The good news is you can get rid of the sections and keep the data, but the process here would be a bit manual.

    Often the best way to remove sections is to cut and paste the data into the section you are going to keep (whether that be the prior section, or a new one) and then once pasted and empty, delete the unwanted section from the outline. Cut and paste of data will keep your links intact, should you have any, as well as the XBRL, if applied. If you have a lot of sections, a tip to bulk delete would be to first cut and paste the data out, then once all the sections are empty and ready for deletion, move them under another parent section to act as the "parent", then set the others as "children" or sub-sections of the parent. Finally, delete the parent section and all the child sections (all the blank ones) will also be deleted.

    Hopefully this helps some. Do let me know what questions you have, and if you need anything else. Thanks for your contributions and have a great day!

     

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  • David Lerio

    Thanks Mike, the above is very helpful. It is quite easy to create new sections (simply right click and split to a new section) so, as a user, I would have expected that 'undoing' that would be straightforward as well; i.e. something like 'combine with previous section' would be available as an option in the Section Properties. Maybe something for the pipeline! Thanks! :) 

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  • Michelle Reinfurt

    I also would like to see a way to combine the contents of one section with the previous or subsequent section, sort of a reverse of the "split to new section" command. Copying and pasting into the target section is easy enough but it would be a nice-to-have.

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  • Lena L

    I second this request.

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  • Mike

    Thanks for chiming in, and brining this back up. From the sounds of it, the ask is eerily similar to this one, correct, i.e. combining/merging sections? I'm definitely happy to share your feedback on our end. We'll keep you updated in the meantime but keep those suggestions coming!

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  • Rhoda Wang

    Also would like to see this functionality. Specifically in a document, vs spreadsheets (discussed in the comment chain linked above).

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  • Abu Rai

    Hi Mike, same here, would appreciate the functionality in a Document, so it might need a separate ticket than the Worksheet ticket link shared in your comment. Thanks

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  • Mike

    Hi Abu!

    Gotcha. In this case, this request can be found here but I can get you hooked up to that same suggestion. Thanks for sharing your interest and give us a holler if you have any questions. Have a great day!

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