Margins bigger than I set in Word

Question

I can't figure out why my right margin is so big. I have the left margin set to 1.5 inches, and the right margin at 1 inch. That means that the right margin should be set at 6 inches from the left margin. This is what my ruler indicates, but it looks like the ruler is off scale. If you actually measure the right margin, it's about 2.25 inches from the edge of the page. Even my page numbers, which are right aligned, are 2.25 inches from the edge of the page. This is just the one document that's doing this.

I've checked the page size in page setup and everything looks fine. I've also tried altering the margin down to 0 through page setup or by dragging it on the ruler, but the computer won't let me go beyond 6.75 inches (which it thinks is a quarter inch from the edge of the page, but it isn't).

What should I do?

Pat P · Answer

I don't know what's going on, but I have found myself in similar situations on occasion. If it's just the one document . . . have you tried starting a new document, setting your paper size, margins, etc., then copying/pasting the old text into it?

I think sometimes documents just get a "glitch" in them and it's easier to recreate than to try and figure out what's causing the problem.

Of course, if yours is a very long document this may not be a practical solution.

Good luck!

Pat Phelan

dra03 · Answer

Thanks, Pat, for the idea, but I already tried that. My document is over 60 pages and has numerous sections with different page margins. They ALL have the problem with the right margin, however. I created a new document, set the margins the way I wanted them for the first section (which looked fine). But then when I copied and pasted my original document into the new one, it reproduced the same problem.

Pat P · Answer

These problems never appear on small documents, do they?

Have you thought about breaking the document into smaller pieces and tying them together in a master document? It might give you better control over the various sections.

I've quit using Word for long documents - have gone to DTP software.

Let me know if you solve your problem.

Pat

mentor00 · Answer

Sounds like a template problem. If you redid the first page and it was ok and then pasted the original onto it, you basically re-introduced the problem. If you edited areas around page breaks then the formating may not change because youv'e introduced new paragraph formatting.

MENTOR00
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dra03 · Answer

Well, don't I feel dumb. After puzzling over this for quite a while, I finally figured out I was in Review mode and it was showing all my inserted comments. As soon as I changed the view everything went back to how it should be.

(It really didn't take me a year and a half to figure this out, but I thought I would post it in case this happens to anyone else!)

Cheers!

Productivity Software

Margins bigger than I set in Word

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