Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Document Formatting

When you start with a blank document, Word provides a one-inch margin at the top and bottom of the page, and a stately one-and-a-quarter inch margin at each side.

Most people never change these settings. In fact, in its own, almost accidental way, Microsoft has dictated the standard margin formatting for the world’s business correspondence. But if you learn how to work with margins—as well as paragraphs and indentation—you can give your document a distinctive look, not to mention fit much more text on a page.

Margins

You can adjust the margins of a Word document in either of two ways: by entering exact measurements (in the Formatting Palette or the Document dialog box), or by dragging the margins directly on the ruler.

To use the numeric option, choose Format → Document → Margins tab, or click the Document Margins title bar on the Formatting Palette. There you’ll find individual boxes that let you specify, in inches, the size of the left, right, top, and bottom margins.

To set your margins by dragging, which produces immediate visible feedback, you need to be in Print Layout view (View → Print Layout) or Publishing Layout view (View → Publishing Layout).

• Left, Right, Top, Bottom. To set margins by dragging, point to the line where the ruler changes from white to blue, without clicking. (The blue area is outside the limits of the margin.) When the cursor changes to a box with double arrows, drag the margin line to any point on the ruler you wish (see Figure 3-15). Now ...