Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Aligning Borders with the Page Margins.

Aligning Borders with the Page Margins

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 17, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 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 Border and Shading Options 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.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (173) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Aligning Borders with the Page Margins.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Inserting a Cross-Reference to the Last Style on a Page

It is often helpful to reference a specific heading in the header or footer of a page, and have that reference change on ...

Discover More

Protecting Conditional Formatting

When you apply conditional formatting to the cells in your worksheet, those rules can seem a bit fragile at times. For ...

Discover More

Understanding DATE Field Formatting

One of the most commonly used fields is the DATE field. You can specify how the DATE field displays the current date by ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Hanging Indents in Wrapped Text

If you use hanging indents for some of your paragraphs, you may wonder why they don't look right when they wrap on the ...

Discover More

Adding Automatic Lines

Want an easy way to add lines in your document? You can do it by making sure Word is using one of its AutoFormat features.

Discover More

Removing Space Before Paragraphs

Want to quickly format a paragraph to remove any extra space before it? Word includes a tool that can make this change a ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is two more than 7?

2018-02-08 10:25:33

Paul J Carter

my question is shading... how do I get the shading bar to extend from margin to margin, from left to right across the page ?

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.