Whether to improve your document’s aesthetic appeal, allow more space for handwritten annotations, or squeeze all your text onto one page, there are many reasons to adjust a Word document’s margins. However, don’t fall into the trap of doing this manually.

Why You Should Avoid Using the Ruler to Adjust the Margins

You might be tempted to adjust your page’s margin sizes by clicking and dragging the margin markers on the ruler that runs along the top and down the side of your document.

However, using this manual method can cause several issues:

• You could end up with inconsistent margins at the top and bottom or left and right of your page.
• If you use section breaks, matching the margin widths in each section can be challenging.
• Achieving precise margin sizes manually is difficult since the cursor jumps between pixels when you click and drag.
• Existing tables, graphics, and formatted lists in your document might not respond well to manually adjusted margins.
• Making the margins too narrow using this method could lead to parts of your work being cut off when printed.

All these problems aside, the indentation markers overlapping the margin adjustment handles in the top ruler further complicates this manual process and could result in you accidentally adjusting things you didn’t intend to adjust.

Use the Margins Menu in the Layout Tab Instead

By far the best way to change your margins is by opening the “Layout” tab on the ribbon, and expanding the “Margins” drop-down menu.

Choosing one of the preset margin width alternatives in this drop-down menu ensures consistency at the top and bottom and left and right of your page, makes it easier to repeat the margin settings in different sections of your document, and decreases the likelihood that some of your content will be cut off during the printing process.

On the other hand, if none of the default options work for you, click “Custom Margins” at the bottom of the drop-down menu.

Then, change the “Top,” “Bottom,” “Left,” and “Right” measurements accordingly in the Page Setup dialog box. Handily, you can specify the values to two decimal places, a much more precise measurement than you can achieve when clicking and dragging the margin markers on the ruler. Just make sure you don’t leave the margins too narrow, as this could affect how your document prints. When you’re done, click “OK.”

Whether you use one of the preset margin width alternatives or define customized parameters, this approach saves time, adds precision and consistency, and is less likely to mess up any graphics, tables, or lists in your document.

Defining the widths of your margins isn’t the only way to improve your Microsoft Word formatting and layout. For example, you can decide what happens when tables span two pages, add spaces after paragraphs to improve readability, or add a title page to introduce your work to your reader.