Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Aligning Borders with the Page Margins.

Aligning Borders with the Page Margins

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated September 14, 2017)

3

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 (9003) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Automatically Hiding the Personal Workbook

If you leave your Personal.xls workbook visible from one Excel session to another, you may find that you unwittingly make ...

Discover More

Ensuring that Spell Checking is Enabled in All Styles

Ever want to enable spell checking in all of the styles within a document, but don't want to check each and every one ...

Discover More

Squeezing Everything In

Do you have just a line or two of text that 'spills over' onto another printed page? Here are some ways you can compress ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Setting the Distance between Text and Borders

Add a border around a piece of text (such as a paragraph), and Word makes some assumptions about the placement of that ...

Discover More

Creating a Full-Page Border

Borders are easy to add around text or entire paragraphs. It may be surprising to you to learn that Word can just as ...

Discover More

Locking a Field

When you use fields in your document, you may want them to not change from a particular displayed result. You can lock ...

Discover More
Subscribe

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

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

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}] 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.

What is 7 + 2?

2015-10-23 09:52:27

andrex

It does only reach 31 points maximum and how can I make it to 72...?

2014-01-11 21:31:45

David M

Just put "points cm inches" in a web search. You will get info like:

1 Inch = 72 Points [Postscript]
1 Point = 0.01388888889 Inch

and

1 Centimetre = 28.3464567 Points [Postscript]
1 Point = 0.0352777778 Centimetres

2014-01-11 13:45:48

Juan

How can I convert inches or centimeters to points?

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

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

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR AUTHORS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2019 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.