My code below will make it quick and painless.

The easy way to do it is to run some code that does all the work for you. So, if you look online for how to accomplish this, you find disappointing solutions involving many steps. That sounds easy, but unfortunately, a lot goes into section formatting-page size and orientation, margins, headers and footers, page borders, etc.

The solution for retaining the formatting of the section above is, therefore, to format the section below to be identical to the section above. (See, e.g., this Microsoft support article.) So, when you delete the break, you’re removing the formatting of the section above (which is what you probably want to keep), and retaining the formatting of the section below instead. Essentially, the section break relates to the section above it, not the section below it. This unexpected result is due to a counterintuitive relationship between sections and section breaks. Have you had the delightful experience of deleting an unwanted section break in a Word document, and then seeing your formatting go to pieces?

Word delete all section breaks