Controlling Paper Types and Orientation

Other page attributes that you need to control in your documents are the paper size and the page orientation. Word's default settings assume that you will print to paper that is a standard 8.5 by 11 inches. The default page orientation is portrait, meaning that the maximum distance from the left edge to the right edge of the page is 8.5 inches.

You can select different paper sizes, which is particularly important if you want to print to envelopes or a different paper size, such as legal-size paper. You can also change the orientation of your text and images as they appear on a page from portrait to landscape, where the page contents are rotated so that the distance between the left and right edges on a standard sheet of paper would be 11 inches.

Paper size and page orientation are both set in the Page Setup dialog box. Follow these steps to edit the settings for these page attributes:

1. Select File , Page Setup . The Page Setup dialog box opens.

2. Click the Paper tab on the dialog box (see Figure 9.3).

   Figure 9.3. The Paper tab of the Page Setup dialog box enables you to set your paper size and source.

   

3. To select a new paper size, click the Paper Size drop-down box and select the paper type. For nonstandard paper sizes, select Custom Size in the Page Size box, and then type the paper's width into the Width box and its height into the Height box.

4. To change the orientation of the page to portrait or landscape, select the Margins tab and click the Portrait or the Landscape option button as needed (refer to Figure 9.1).

5. Finally, in the Apply To drop-down box, select Whole Document to apply the new settings to the new document or This Point Forward to apply the settings to the document from the current page forward.

6. When you complete editing the settings, click OK .