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: Changing Page Margins.

Changing Page Margins

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 27, 2016)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


When you first start Word, certain assumptions are made about your page layout. One of these assumptions has to do with your page margins. You can change your page margins at any time by following these steps:

  1. Choose the Page Setup option from the File menu. Word displays the Page Setup dialog box.
  2. Make sure the Margins tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The Margins tab of the Page Setup dialog box.

  4. Adjust the top, bottom, left, and right margins as desired.
  5. Make sure the Apply To drop-down list is set to Whole Document.
  6. Click on OK.

Page margins can be different for each section in your document. This means that if you need to switch margins in the middle of a document, you can do so by inserting a section break and then modifying the margins for each of the resulting document sections. When doing this, the only difference in the above steps is that you would make sure the Apply To drop-down list (step 4) is set to This Section.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1020) 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: Changing 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. ...

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