Whether or not to enhance your doc’s aesthetic attraction, enable extra space for handwritten annotations, or squeeze all of your textual content onto one web page, there are various causes to regulate a Phrase doc’s margins. Nevertheless, do not fall into the entice of doing this manually.
Why You Ought to Keep away from Utilizing the Ruler to Modify the Margins
You is likely to be tempted to regulate your web page’s margin sizes by clicking and dragging the margin markers on the ruler that runs alongside the highest and down the facet of your doc.
Nevertheless, utilizing this guide technique may cause a number of points:
- You can find yourself with inconsistent margins on the prime and backside or left and proper of your web page.
- If you happen to use section breaks, matching the margin widths in every part may be difficult.
- Reaching exact margin sizes manually is troublesome because the cursor jumps between pixels whenever you click on and drag.
- Present tables, graphics, and formatted lists in your doc won’t reply properly to manually adjusted margins.
- Making the margins too slim utilizing this technique may result in parts of your work being cut off when printed.
All these issues apart, the indentation markers overlapping the margin adjustment handles within the prime ruler additional complicates this guide course of and will lead to you unintentionally adjusting stuff you did not intend to regulate.
By far one of the best ways to alter your margins is by opening the “Format” tab on the ribbon, and increasing the “Margins” drop-down menu.
Selecting one of many preset margin width options on this drop-down menu ensures consistency on the prime and backside and left and proper of your web page, makes it simpler to repeat the margin settings in numerous sections of your doc, and reduces the chance that a few of your content material might be reduce off throughout the printing course of.
Alternatively, if not one of the default choices give you the results you want, click on “Customized Margins” on the backside of the drop-down menu.
Then, change the “High,” “Backside,” “Left,” and “Proper” measurements accordingly within the Web page Setup dialog field. Handily, you’ll be able to specify the values to 2 decimal locations, a way more exact measurement than you’ll be able to obtain when clicking and dragging the margin markers on the ruler. Simply be sure to do not depart the margins too slim, as this might have an effect on how your doc prints. If you’re finished, click on “OK.”
If you’d like all future margins to measure the customized sizes you specify within the Web page Setup dialog field, click on “Set As Default.”
Whether or not you utilize one of many preset margin width options or outline custom-made parameters, this method saves time, provides precision and consistency, and is much less prone to mess up any graphics, tables, or lists in your doc.
Defining the widths of your margins is not the one option to improve your Microsoft Word formatting and layout. For instance, you’ll be able to resolve what occurs when tables span two pages, add spaces after paragraphs to enhance readability, or add a title page to introduce your work to your reader.