Word template page break ignored when combining documents in CLM workflow

Hi Community,

I am working on a DocuSign CLM workflow that combines a generated document with user-uploaded attachments into a single merged PDF using the Combine Documents workflow step.

I followed advice from this community thread (https://community.docusign.com/clm-112/workflow-combine-documents-step-20902) which recommends adding a page break at the end of the main Word template so that the attached documents start on a new page in the merged output.

What I did:

• Opened the main Word template (.docx) in CLM
• Placed the cursor at the very end of the document after all content
• Inserted a hard page break using Ctrl + Enter
• Saved and re-uploaded the template back to CLM

Problem: The page break is not being preserved in the merged output. The combined PDF does not show any page separation between the main document and the appended attachments.

Questions:

1. Is a hard page break (Ctrl + Enter) the correct way to do this, or is there a specific CLM merge tag or method that should be used instead?
2. Does the CLM merge engine strip out trailing page breaks during PDF conversion?
3. Is there anything else that needs to be configured in the Combine Documents step itself to ensure proper page separation?

Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks!