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Understanding page (section) formatting (book excerpt)
| Applies to |
| Microsoft Office Word 2003 |
 |
This article was excerpted from Microsoft® Office Document Designer by Stephanie Krieger. Visit Microsoft Learning to buy this book and CD set, which includes the Microsoft Office Document Designer tool kit. |
In this article
Introduction
Common section formatting features More informationIntroduction
Almost all formatting you can apply in a Word document falls
into one of three easily organizable categories. Word likes to keep things as
simple and organized as possible — and the three categories or three levels of Word formatting provide a great example of how
that organization can save you time. The three levels are Font, Paragraph, and
Section formatting.
Section
formatting, which this article addresses, applies to the aspects we think of
as page layout, such as headers and footers, page orientation, and so on. You
can see this when you look at the Reveal Formatting
task pane. Notice that Section formatting for a typical document includes
elements such as margins and paper size, as in the picture here.
Note Font formatting is any formatting that
you can apply to as little as one character, such as bold, underline, Times New
Roman, and so on. Paragraph formatting is any formatting that you can apply to
as little as one paragraph, such as paragraph spacing before and after, line spacing,
indents, and so on.
Section formatting can be thought of as page layout or document
formatting, since this formatting applies to an entire document by default.
It's named section because you insert a formatting
mark called a section break in order to change
settings for this type of formatting in only part of your document.
Note For example, if an exhibit at the end of
your document needs to be in landscape page-orientation, but the rest of the
document is formatted with portrait page-orientation, inserting a Next page
section break (on the Insert menu, click Break) just before the last page will
allow you to change the orientation of that page to landscape.
A section break is an essential tool for most Word
documents, and it will be discussed in detail in the article
Changing section formatting within a document. But first, let's take a look at everything Word
considers to be Section formatting, and how to apply each in your document.
Section formatting includes all commands accessible through
the Page Setup dialog box on the File menu (margins, page orientation, paper size, etc.), as well as
headers and footers, text columns (i.e., the Columns command, Format menu), page
borders, the numbering of footers and endnotes,
and some document protection options. The table that follows provides a more
detailed introduction to the most common Section formatting features.
Important It's a frequent misconception that
inserting Word tables, graphics, reference tables (such as Table of Contents),
or even changes in outline numbering require the use of a section break. None of these features are section formatting and none of them ever requires adding
a section break to your document.  Top of Page
Common section formatting features
| The formatting feature |
The basics |
Tips and more information |
|
Page margins
|
Page margins are the distance between the edge of the page
and your document's main content. By default, page margins in Word are 1 inch
at the top and bottom and 1.25 inches on the left and right (or 25.4 mm and
31.7 mm, respectively).
Change page margins on the Margins
tab of the Page Setup dialog box (File menu).
Or, when working in print layout view, place your
insertion point over the horizontal or vertical ruler precisely where it
meets the page margin (where the color changes at the edges of the ruler).
When the insertion point changes to a double-backed black arrow, click and
drag to change the margin. Your insertion point will look like the Left
Margin and Top Margin examples here.
Tip Hold down the ALT key while dragging the margin to see your measurement as you change it.
Note If you don't see the
vertical ruler when working in print layout view, turn it on from the View tab (Tools menu, Options dialog box). If you don't see the
horizontal ruler, turn it on by selecting Ruler
on the View menu.
|
More info For help with
headers and footers, see the tip sheet "Word Documents from Top to Bottom: Making Headers and Footers That Work"
(Microsoft Office Document Designer).
|
|
Page orientation
|
Word document orientation is portrait
by default. Orientation is portrait when it is taller than it is wide. To
make a document wider than it is tall (for example, to make a letter-size
document read as 11 x 8.5 inches instead of 8.5 x 11 inches), change the
orientation to Landscape on the Margins tab of the Page Setup dialog box.
|
If you change the
orientation of a document and Word tables don't resize automatically to fit
the new page width, click into the table and select AutoFit to Window (on the Table menu, point to AutoFit) to reorient the table.
|
|
Paper size
|
Change the paper size of your document on the Paper tab of the Page Setup dialog box. Common paper sizes, including letter, A4, legal,
etc., are listed in the Paper size
drop-down list. If you need a standard paper size that isn't listed, such as
A3 or Tabloid (11"x17"), it's most likely because your active printer does
not accommodate that paper size. You can either change the active printer (if
another is available) to see more paper sizes, or just type the dimensions of
the paper you need. When you manually type custom dimensions, the value in
the Paper size drop-down list will automatically change to read Custom Size.
|
Note If you type a custom
paper size that your active printer can't accommodate, you will see the
warning message "One of more margins are set outside the printable area of the page."
Click Ignore in that
message box and Word will accommodate your paper size request.
To print a document that
is designed for larger paper than your printer accommodates, select an
available paper size from the Scale to paper size
drop-down list in the Print dialog box
(File menu).
|
|
Paper source
|
It might seem strange to think of Paper source as
formatting, but that's the way Word sees it — which makes this feature pretty
convenient! That's because, if you want a document to always prompt you for a
manual paper feed for the first page (such as a letter that will require
printing the first page on letterhead paper), you can set that on the Paper tab of the Page Setup dialog box and that setting will remain in your document.
|
Note Paper source options
vary depending on your default printer.
|
|
Vertical alignment
|
You might want to change the vertical alignment of content
on full pages, such as to center the cover page of a report.
Change vertical alignment on the Layout tab of the Page Setup dialog box.
|
Note When you select Center
or Bottom vertical alignment, the document header might appear to take up a
huge portion of the page. Don't be concerned! The header always extends from
the top of your body text to the header margin, so when the top of your body
text starts at the bottom of the page (as on a blank page with Bottom
vertical alignment), the header might appear to take up almost the entire
page, but it really doesn't. The header area will shrink automatically as you
add content to the body of your document. See the tip sheet
"Word Documents from Top to Bottom: Making Headers and Footers That Work"
(Microsoft Office Document Designer) for more information.
|
|
Line numbering
|
Line numbering is not a feature you'll use often, but it's
nice to know it's there. Turn line numbering on from the Line Numbers option on the Layout tab (File menu, Page Setup command) to number lines down the left edge of the page.
In the Line Numbers dialog box, you can set the distance
between the numbers and text (line numbers always sit in the space of the
left margin), select the number to count by (every line, every two lines,
etc.), and determine how often the numbering restarts (each page, continuous,
etc.)
|
Caution This feature won't
count lines inside of Word tables. If you add a table on a page with line
numbering, the numbering will end above the table and start again after the
table without skipping numbers, ignoring the table content.
|
|
Page borders
|
Page borders are a quick and easy way to sharpen up the
design and presentation of most any document — adding a professional emphasis
to even simple documents such as memos or letters that typically look rather
plain.
To apply a page border, go to the Page Border tab of the Borders and Shading dialog box (Format menu, Borders
and Shading command). In that dialog box, select line style, color, width, and even
artistic lines (such as flowers, stars, or a number of other buttons). Place a
full box border or click on the preview to select top, bottom, left, and/or
right page borders.
|
Tip Click the Options button on the Page Border tab of the Borders and Shading dialog box to adjust the
distance between the border and text, and to set preferences such as whether
the border surrounds headers and/or footers, whether the border appears in
front or behind overlapping document content, etc. See the tip sheet
"Section Formatting Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting" (Microsoft Office Document Designer)
for help setting page border options.
For more detailed
help on using borders and shading, check out the paragraph formatting article "Using Borders and Shading for Text and Paragraphs" (Microsoft Office Document Designer).
|
|
Headers and footers
|
Use the headers and footers in your document for any
content that needs to repeat on multiple pages, such as page numbers, chapter
titles, etc.
If any content in your document must fall at the top or
bottom of a given page regardless of the document's content (such as the
continuation heading of a business letter), put that in the document's header
or footer instead of cutting and pasting every time your content changes!
|
For step-by-step instructions for creating easy-to-manage,
great-looking headers and footers, see the article "Word Documents from Top to Bottom: Making Headers and Footers That Work" (Microsoft Office Document Designer).
|
|
Page numbering
|
Adding page numbering to any long document is a good idea.
It's easy to do and offers many flexible options for exactly the formatting
you need.
Though there are a few ways to go about this, inserting
page numbers from the Header and Footer toolbar is the best way to go. Just
click the Insert Page Number button 
on the Header and Footer toolbar (View menu) to add the page number as a field at the
insertion point.
|
Best practices Don't use the
Page Numbers command on the Insert menu! It might appear to do the same
thing as inserting the page number from the Header and Footer toolbar, but it
doesn't.
When you use the Page Numbers command (Insert menu), the page
number field is added to your header or footer, but it's placed inside a
graphic frame. That makes it behave like a graphic object, which is much more
complicated to manage than a simple field. When you insert the field from the
Header and Footer toolbar, it's a regular Word field code, so you can format
it just as you would plain text.
More info See the tip sheet
"Managing Page Numbering" (Microsoft Office Document Designer)
for detailed help with
creating and customizing page numbers.
|
|
Text columns
|
In older versions of Word, as in most word processing
software applications, you'd need to use the Columns command (Format
menu) to create multiple columns of text or other document content.
Today, the only instance in which text columns are still
the easiest solution is when you need what are called newspaper columns. That
is, content that automatically flows from one column to the next when text is
added or removed.
To create a document with newspaper columns, click the
Columns button  on the Standard
toolbar, drag your mouse pointer across the number of columns you want and
release the mouse button. Then, as you come to the end of a column, your text
will automatically start in the next column. As text is edited, the flow
between columns automatically adjusts.
|
Best practices For any
document that appears to call for columns, other than the newspaper columns
described here, you'll find Word tables to be a much easier and more flexible
way to go. Tables make it simpler (automatic, actually) to align text across
rows or to put document content side-by-side (such as a picture and its
description); and nested tables make it a cinch to put virtually any document content beside a table. To get started
using Word tables, and for a quick-reference guide to all available "How do I?" tables articles and tip sheets, check out the
tip sheet "The Greatest Document Tool Since Paper! Introducing Word Tables!"
(Microsoft Office Document Designer).
|
|
Footnote and endnote numbering and
placement
|
The only things about footnotes and endnotes that falls
under the category of Section formatting are their numbering
and placement.
When you use footnotes or endnotes in your document, Word
gives you the option to number the notes continuously through the document,
to restart numbering for each new page (or each new section) and to change
the footnotes or endnote number format when you start a new section.
And, you also have the option to place footnotes at the
bottom of the page or beneath the page's text — and endnotes at the end of the
section or end of the document.
|
You might want to restart footnote numbering by section if
you have a document, for example, that's organized in chapters. If you start
a new section for each chapter, it's likely you might want to restart
numbering of any references, such as footnotes or endnotes, at the same time.
More info For help creating footnotes and endnotes, check out the
tip sheet titled "Footnotes!" (Microsoft Office Document Designer).
|
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More information
If you feel comfortable with the basics of
Section formatting discussed here, check out the article
Changing section formatting within a document for help using the most important element of Section
formatting, the section break, and to learn how to
apply any of the Section formatting commands discussed above to just part of a
document. Once you feel set with section breaks, check out the Section
formatting tip sheets listed in the following table.
| Take the stress out of headers and footers once and for
all and learn a thing or two that might surprise you! |
"Word Documents from Top to Bottom: Creating Headers and Footers That Work" (Microsoft Office Document Designer) |
| Ever need a page numbering format you didn't think
existed, or have trouble updating page numbers correctly? Get the scoop on
page numbering and learn some nifty new tricks in the bargain! |
"Managing Page Numbering" (Microsoft Office Document Designer) |
| If the choices between mirror margins, book fold, gutters,
odd and even headers and footers, etc., seem daunting — have no fear! Check out
this tip sheet for step-by-step help to easy and manageable book-style
document layouts. |
"Creating Book-style Page Layouts" (Microsoft Office Document Designer) |
| Why do my section breaks change from next page to
continuous breaks on their own? Can I delete a section break without my whole
document going haywire? Get easy answers to your most common section
formatting issues, including the ever-popular "I swear I didn't turn Same As
Previous back on! How did that happen?!" |
"Section Formatting Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting" (Microsoft Office Document Designer) |
About the author Stephanie Krieger, a Microsoft Word MVP, is a professional consultant, trainer, and writer who specializes in creating solutions with the Microsoft Office System. She helps clients customize software and design templates and also provides train-the-trainer services.
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