MS Word provides users with flexibility in arranging the way the document page is viewed and printed. Unless you execute the Page Setup command, your document page will use the predefined defaults. Those defaults allow for a Portrait orientation, top and bottom margins of 1 inch, and left and right margin of 1 ¼ inches. I personally prefer the left and right margins to be 1 inch and have changed my defaults to use that setup.

When you execute the Page | Set-up command, a dialog box is displayed providing you with all of the options available for customizing your set-up. Let's review a few basics. The dialog box provides for three tabs; margins, paper, and layout. As you view each tab, you will note sections that are identified by a title and inverted line. Note also the default, OK and Cancel buttons at the bottom of the dialog box that remain constant as you view each options tab.

Page Setup Margins

The margin's tab is divided into 4 sections: Margins, Orientation, Pages, and Preview.




The Margins section allows you to set the document (or document section to be discussed in more detail later). By using the radial buttons or by typing, you can change your margins to what's appropriate for your document. The gutter settings are used when a document is to be bound. Generally you would want to leave at least a ¼ inch gutter. The default gutter position is left for one sided documents.

The Orientation Section lets you define whether you want a portrait style page – i.e., on the length of the paper or a landscape style page - i.e., on the width of the paper.

The Pages section are options to define your documents that have multiple pages. The choices are Normal, Mirror Margins, Book Bind and Two pages per sheet. Mirror Margins and Book Bind work with the gutter command for binding purposes.

The preview section allows you to control where within your documents to affect the page set up. The choices are to apply them to the whole document, from a point forward or to a specific section. You need to insert a section break for the "This Section" option to be available. This section is available on both the Paper and Layout tabs as well.

Page Setup Paper Tab





The Paper tab offers Size and Source options for your print job.

In the Size section, define the paper size on which you choose to print. This will be limited by your printer capabilities.

In the Source section, you can choose to have the 1st page print from a different paper tray then the remainder of your pages – such as a title page may have a different type of paper. Again, this will be limited by your printer's capabilities.



Page Setup Layout



The layout tab controls your document sections (if you have used section breaks), the printing of endnotes, headers and footers, and your page vertical alignment.

Using the Line Number button, you can also cause the document to print with line numbers along the side of the document text.

The paper and layout tabs are advanced setup options and would be used when preparing complex multi-page documents.