Three Ways To Change Your Margins in MS Word
Basically, there are three ways to change your margin settings in Word.
- Through Page Setup
- In Print Layout View
- In Print Preview
Through Page Setup:
Go to File>Page Setup and click on the Margins tab. In there, you
can type in the margins you want for left, right, top, and bottom. You
can also use the dropdown menu at the bottom to choose whether you want to
apply these margins to your whole document or from this point forward.
If your document has sections, you can also choose to apply these settings
to just this section:
In Print Layout View:
Go to the View menu and choose Print Layout. Now you can drag your
margins using the rulers. (If you don't see your rulers, go to the
View menu and click on "Ruler".) This allows you to see how the document will
be adjusted when you change the margins. Once you've changed the
margins this way, if you go back to File>Page Setup, you will see the
numbers have changed there as well.
If you move your mouse to the area on the ruler where the gray section
starts, you will see your mouse pointer turns into a line with arrows on
each end and a tool tip pops out that says "Top margin" or "Left margin",
etc. Just click and drag when you see that:
In Print Preview:
Print Preview allows you to change the margins using the rulers or Page
Setup the same way, but the advantage to doing it in Print Preview is you
can display multiple pages at once, then click on any individual section and
change the margins on just that section. (NOTE that you cannot have
different margin settings for different pages unless those pages are in
different sections, using Next Page Section Breaks, instead of just Page
Breaks.)
Go to File>Print Preview and click on the multiple pages button on the
toolbar and drag across the number of pages you want to display:
Now you will see that many pages on your screen and you can click on any
one page to select it, then change the margins by dragging on the ruler OR by
going to File>Page Setup for that one section
without affecting the margins on the other sections.
ONE FINAL NOTE: Hewlett Packard printers have
known issues with bottom margins. An HP inkjet has only one roll
behind the print head. So it can print full-bleed at the upper edge, but,
when it comes to the end of the sheet, the printer can only print as long as
it can hold the paper with its one roll. It cannot continue printing when
the one roll loses hold of the paper, then nothing advances it anymore.
Therefore the last half inch is never printed with any HP inkjet.
So, never make your bottom margin less than 3/4 of an inch or you will lose
the stuff at the bottom of your page.
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Linda Johnson is a
college instructor of all of the Microsoft Office Programs, as well
as Adobe PhotoShop and Windows. She also teaches online distance
learning classes in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word at
Eclectic Academy. She has worked helpdesk and teaches
and lectures at many local businesses and tech schools in her area. Support this
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