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Step 1.
When you open a blank Word document, it
is just that---blank. As you can see in the illustration to the left, a
new Word document is just like an artist's canvas---there's nothing on
it until you put something there. (If a blank Word document doesn't look
like this illustration to the left, go to Step X at the end of this
tutorial to learn how to change the "view" mode.)
Microsoft Word is set up with
"default" settings for font, font size, font color, margins, and other
general text formatting. A "default" setting is a setting that
"automatically" occurs when you open Word. (Although you can change
Word's default settings, that's another tutorial altogether, and isn't
something that you need to learn at this point.) |
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Step 2.
There is nothing wrong with using Word's
default settings. However, the default settings might not be suitable
for the text that you need to create. You may need to format your text
to comply with required page formatting, such as for a school paper or
to submit to a website for publication. And maybe you just want to
create a family newsletter that doesn't look so "generic."
The first thing to learn is how to
adjust the "Page Setup" settings. These are the most basic settings:
margins and print layout mode.
On the toolbar (the gray row under the
blue bar at the very top of the computer screen), click on the word
File. Now, click on Page Setup. If you click on File and do not see
"Page Setup" to click on, then click on the down arrows at the bottom of
the drop-down menu that appears, or simply hold the mouse key down for a
few moments for the whole menu to appear. |
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Step 3.
A pop-up window will appear, generally
with the "Margins" pane showing. (If the "Margins" pane, as shown to the
left, doesn't appear, then click on the word "Margins" on the "tab" that
appears under the words "Page Setup" on the top blue bar of the pop-up
window.)
Review this window pane. It is
separated into four sections: Margins, Orientation, Pages, Preview.
There are some buttons on the bottom of the window: Default, OK, Cancel.
Good---you're already learning new
computer skills! |
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Step 4. Change the top,
bottom, left, and right margins.
A page "margin" is the blank space on the
top and bottom and left and right sides of the page. This means that
when you type something, it will NOT appear in the margins. The margins
will always be blank (in terms of typed text). When you open the Page
Setup window, the "default" settings appear.
To change any of the margins, simply
change the number that shows in the field for that margin. You can do
that one of two ways: Click in the field, and "type over" the number
that already appears; or click on the up/down arrows to the right of the
field until the desired margin setting is shown.
For example, change the top margin
from 1" to 2-1/2" (2.5"):
- Click in the margin field, click
the mouse button and drag the mouse to highlight the number 1, and
type 2.5 (type 2, hit the period key, type 5)
---or---
- Click on the up arrow until 2.5
appears
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Step 5.
You may have noticed that the small
picture of a page, in the lower right of the pop-up window, changed as
you changed the top margin setting. (If it doesn't look like it has
changed, then click the mouse anywhere but in the top margin field.) As
you change every setting, that page illustration will change. You can
experiment by changing all of the settings and just clicking on
options---watch that page illustration to see how each setting will
affect how the page prints!
Change the bottom setting to 1.5" in
the same manner as in Step 4.
It isn't likely that you need to
change the "Gutter" or the "Gutter position" settings. However, feel
free to experiment. Change the settings and watch the page illustration
at the bottom of the pop-up window to see what happens when you change
them.
Now, look at the small page
illustration in the bottom of the pop-up window. You will see that the
bottom margin has changed as well. (If it doesn't look like it has
changed, then click the mouse anywhere but in the top margin field.)
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Step 6. Page Orientation
There are two page "orientations":
portrait and landscape.
Portrait means that the page prints so
that the page is 8-1/2 x 11" (the standard "letter" page, or "top to
bottom").
Landscape means that the page prints
so that the page is 11 x 8-1/2" (the page is "left to right").
If you are still a little unsure about
this, in the "Orientation" section of the pop-up window, click on the
capital letter A that has the word "Landscape" under it. Then, look at
the page illustration at the bottom of the pop-up window.
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Step 7. Pages
The default is "Normal"---and unless you
know specifically that you need pages in a single text to print in one
of the printing setups available (mirror, 2 pages per sheet, book fold),
then you should not change this option.
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Once you hit the OK, button, the
screen goes back to this view. It might not look different at this
point, but when the page prints, it will have the correct margins
for the settings that you change.
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Step 8. Preview
This is an advanced setting. Under
"normal" circumstances, you shouldn't need to change the setting. For
some academic papers (such as a term paper, master's thesis, or
post-graduate dissertation), it might be necessary to change the page
setup of a single page of a multi-page document. For the purposes of
this tutorial, do not change this setting.
There are two other "tabs" in this
pop-up window: Paper and Layout. For the purposes of this tutorial, you
will not need to change anything on those two tabs. However, you can
click on each tab and review the settings that can be changed. Feel free
to experiment by changing fields, just to see what happens.
At this point, you have learned the
skills you need to change page margins and page print mode.
If you've made all the changes you
want to make, click the OK button. (If you hit the Cancel button, none
of the changes will be made. If you click the Default button, then the
changes you made to this Word document will become the new
default settings for every document---so be careful about doing this). |
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