Sections

WordprocessingML does not natively store the concept of pages, since it is based on paragraphs and runs (which are laid out on to pages by consumers of this content). However, although there is no concept of storing pages in the WordprocessingML format, it is often necessary to store information about a page or group of pages in a document, in order to store information that is to be used to format the pages on which a set of paragraphs will appear. In WordprocessingML, this information is stored via the use of sections.

In WordprocessingML, sections are groupings of paragraphs that have a specific set of properties used to define the pages on which the text will appear, as well as other section-level (applying to all paragraphs' appearance) properties.

example:

Therefore, rather than try to cache knowledge of the number of pages and their properties (which is likely to become invalid if the XML is manipulated by a producer that does not understand page layout), this information is stored by breaking the document into two sections, as follows:

<w:p>
  …
</w:p>
<w:p>
  …
</w:p>
<w:p>
  …
</w:p>
<w:p>
  <w:sectPr>
    …
    (section one properties go here)
    <w:pgSz ... w:orient="landscape" />
    …    
  </w:sectPr>
  …
</w:p>
…
<w:p>
  <w:sectPr>
    …
    (section two properties go here)
    <w:pgSz ... w:orient="landscape" />
    …    
  </w:sectPr>
  …
</w:p>