Applying Page Formatting

Once again, Word decides what's best for you (in a well-intentioned sort of way). It makes two main assumptions about page formatting: You want 1-inch top and bottom margins and 1 1/4-inch left and right margins, and you are printing on 8 1/2x11-inch paper. To change these and other default page-formatting options, use the techniques described in this hour . You need to know two things up front to understand how page formatting works:

• Page formatting is automatically applied to every page in your document. Therefore, it doesn't matter where your insertion point is when you apply the formatting, or whether any text is selected.

• If you want to apply different page formatting to different portions of a document ”for example, set different margins on one page of a multipage document ”you need to insert section breaks to divide your document into two or more sections. You'll learn how to do this in "Varying the Page Formatting in Your Document" at the end of this hour.

You can't issue page-formatting commands via the Formatting toolbar, as you can with font and paragraph formatting. Word assumes that you won't need to apply page formatting as frequently, so it reserves the space on the Formatting toolbar for font- and paragraph-formatting commands. To apply page formatting, you'll use a combination of dialog boxes (primarily the Page Setup dialog box), the rulers, and keyboard shortcuts.

As you practice applying the page formatting available in the Page Setup dialog box, you may discover that you make a particular change in almost every document you create. For example, if you're using preprinted letterhead, you may need to change the margins on all of your documents. In these situations, you can modify the Normal template to assume the page formatting you use. To do so, display the Page Setup dialog box (File, Page Setup), set the option that you want to use, click the Default button in the lower-left corner of the dialog box, and click the Yes button in the message box that appears.