Aligning Borders with the Page Margins

Summary: Word allows you to add borders to the paragraphs in your document. This border normally extends into the margin areas of the document, beyond the margins observed by the text itself. This tip provides some guidance on how you can adjust paragraph formatting so you can align the borders with the text margins in the surrounding paragraphs. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, and Word 2003.)

When you add borders to paragraphs, the left and right indentation on the paragraph is unchanged, and the border is drawn around the paragraph. This means that the border may extend into the text margins, if necessary. At times, this can look funny or even distracting in your page layout. The solution is to adjust the paragraph margins so that when the border is drawn, it does not extend beyond the normal text margins. To do this, you will need to experiment with the margin settings for the paragraph. The following hints may help:

Try to position the bordered paragraph near the ruler. You can then see if your margin adjustments bring the left edge of the border even with the 0 mark on the ruler.
If you are using the thinnest (hairline) single rule for a border, try indenting the paragraph by 2 points more than the value in the From Text field of the Borders and Shading dialog box. Thus, if you have indicated that the box should be 5 points from the text, then you would indent the paragraph 7 points.
Remember you will have to change the paragraph indents if you change the border type.

Tip #173 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

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Aligning Borders with the Page Margins