Whether you want to make your document look more spacious, or need to meet specific formatting requirements, learning how to set the margins in Word is a must. In this post, we’ll show you how to adjust the margin settings in your document to look and print the way you want. We will be using Word 2013 but this guide also applies for Word 2013 / 2016.
You can set the margins using two methods.
- Setting the margin from the Margin sub-menu in the Page Layout Menu.
- Dragging the ruler on top of the document to your desired position.
This method involves setting the margins from the Margin submenu under the Page Layout menu.
- Click on Layout from the Top Menu (it might be called Page Layout in your version).
- On the top left, select the Margins sub-menu to reveal preset margin options.
- Select any of these preset margins to automatically apply the settings to your open document.
Select the desired preset margin from the options available.
For cases where you need to set the margin manually,
- Click Custom Margin. This will open the Page Setup dialog box.
Click the Custom Margin tab for more margin and page setup settings. - Enter your desired margin figures in the Margins Section. Then, you can see a preview in the Preview Section.
- Beneath the preview section, you can choose to apply the margin changes to the whole document or for the current page onwards.
- Click OK. You’ve successfully set your margins in Word.
Select Custom Margin. Enter your margin details and make other necessary changes. Click OK.
Method 2 – Drag the Rulers
Another way to change the margins in Microsoft Word is to drag the rulers. If the rulers for your document are not visible, click on the View menu and tick the Ruler checkbox (note in some versions you will have to click on Ruler instead of checking a box).
- To adjust the left and right margins, click the left margin ruler slider and drag it to your desired position. Do the same for the right margin.
- To adjust the top margin, scroll to the top of the document and drag the margins up or down. For the bottom margin, scroll to the bottom of the document and drag the margin slider up or down to your desired position.
Move the sliders to drag the margins of your document.