Setting Margins, Changing Margins in Word 2007 Documents

When you start a new Word 2007 document, give careful thought to the margins. Changing the size of margins after you enter the text, clip art, graphics, and whatnot can be disastrous. If you change margin settings, then all the indents and page breaks also change throughout your document. By setting margins carefully from the beginning, you can rest assured that text lands on the page where you intended.

Don't confuse margins with indents. Text is indented from the margin, not from the edge of the page. If you want to change how far text falls from the page edge, indent it. To change margin settings in the middle of a document, you have to create a new section.

To set up or change the margins, go to the Page Layout tab and click the Margins button. You see a drop-down list with margin settings. Either choose a setting or select Custom Margins to open the Margins tab of the Page Setup dialog box and choose among these commands for handling margins:

• Changing the size of the margins: Enter measurements in the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right boxes to tell Word how much blank space to put along the sides of the page.

• Making room for the gutter: The gutter is the part of the paper that the binding eats into when you bind a document. Enter a measurement in the Gutter box to increase the left or inside margin and make room for the binding. Choose Top on the Gutter Position menu if you intend to bind your document from the top, not the left, or inside, of the page. Some legal documents are bound this way.

• Handling two-sided documents (inside and outside margins): In a bound document in which text is printed on both sides of the pages, the terms left margin and right margin are meaningless. What matters instead is in the inside margin, the margin in the middle of the page spread next to the bindings, and the outside margin, the margin on the outside of the page spread that isn't affected by the bindings. Choose Mirror Margins on the Multiple Pages drop-down list and adjust the margins accordingly if you intend to print on both sides of the paper.

• Applying margin changes: On the Apply To drop-down list, choose Whole Document to apply your margin settings to the entire document; This Section to apply them to a section; or This Point Forward to change margins in the rest of a document. When you choose This Point Forward, Word creates a new section.

To get a good look at where margins are as you're working in a document, click the Office button and choose Word Options. In the Word Options dialog box, select the Advanced category, and click the Show Text Boundaries check box (you'll find it under Show Document Content).