Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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: Margins Incorrect when Printing.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 7, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016
Pamela edits doctoral dissertations for grad students and discovered that the margins on her Word printouts are inaccurate. Although the page setup reflects the appropriate margins, the margins are greater when printed. They also appear irregular and greater in the print view. She has contacted Microsoft directly, but they will not assist her because the software was preloaded by Dell at time of purchase. She contacted Dell and though they attempted to assist her, they were unsuccessful in resolving this issue.
There are many possible causes for the problem, as described. Unfortunately, tracking down the problem means that you are going to have to engage in some "trial and error" to figure out what is going on.
First, you need to figure out if the problem occurs on all documents or not. If it doesn't, then you know that it has to be a document-specific setting. For instance, check the Margins tab of the Page Setup dialog box to see if there is a gutter margin set. If there is, set it to 0 and see if the problem goes away.
Check the other margin settings, as well. For instance, do the margins apply to the whole document, or are there different sections in the document that have different margins specified? Try selecting the whole document with Ctrl+A, viewing the Page Setup dialog box, and applying the desired margins to the Whole Document.
Next, check to see if you have changes tracked in the document. If Track Changes is turned on, Word may be set to print "Final Showing Markup," which can cause some funky margins in the printout. If you suspect this is the case, choose to a different printing mode (in the Print dialog box) or resolve all the outstanding changes before printing.
Another thing to check is the settings in the Print area of the Advanced options in the Word Options dialog box. For instance, if Allow A4/Letter Resizing is enabled, the output can appear different than what you see on-screen. Similarly, if you have Word configured to print hidden text (but not display it) or to print field codes, this could affect the way that information is printed.
You may also want to check to see if some strange font substitution is going on in your printout. If either Word or your printer is substituting fonts on you, then you can get some strange looking results, often in subtle ways.
You should note that the above settings don't actually affect the margins, but may affect what is printed and give the appearance that the margins are changing in the printout. If you are sure that it is the margins that are changing and not the text itself that is changing, then this indicates that the problem may be related to a printer driver. You'll want to figure out the exact make and model of the printer you are using, along with your version of Windows, and then visit the Web site for the printer manufacturer. Download and install the latest printer driver and the problem may go away.
You need to make sure that you get the printer driver for your exact model of printer—anything for a "related" printer might give the erroneous results. In addition, you'll want to make sure that you have—in Windows—the proper printer driver selected for your output.
Finally, you may want to check if there is something inherently goofy in how your printer actually prints. One way to check this is to print the same document on a different printer, if you have multiple printers available to your system. An even more interesting way to do it is to create a blank document and add two lines to it. These two lines should form a "plus sign" in the exact center of the page. Print the page and then fold the paper in half horizontally and vertically. If the folds don't correspond with the location of the plus sign, then that is a good indicator that your printer's paper handling mechanism isn't terribly accurate and can affect your output.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10913) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Margins Incorrect when Printing.
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2022-09-19 21:39:28
Kyron
"Another thing to check is the settings in the Print area of the Advanced options in the Word Options dialog box. For instance, if Allow A4/Letter Resizing is enabled, the output can appear different than what you see on-screen. Similarly, if you have Word configured to print hidden text (but not display it) or to print field codes, this could affect the way that information is printed." This did the trick for me. I was having different results from each of my two printers, and this option helped to show me that one of the printers was configures to "scale back" any text on certain sizes of paper.
Thank you for your help!
2019-09-18 04:55:31
Cassandra Solon Parry
I couldn't understand why I had a huge margin when printing on the right hand side that didn't show up in the normal view. There were 'Comments' that had been switched off so were invisible but had not been deleted and the printed version was making space for them. I turned on the 'Comments', deleted them at the document print out reverted to normal margins.
2019-09-03 09:43:03
Rayyan
i tried to disable "allow fields containing tracked" and " scale content for A4", it worked!!
- JURNAL FISDAS, FT-UH, INFORMATIKA 2019
2019-04-01 23:55:46
Rebeccah
One more thing to check, if the margins that are wrong are top and bottom margins: Make sure you don't have blank lines in the header and/or footer! This one keeps on biting me as I convert resumes with contact information in the header into resumes with no headers
2019-03-16 04:17:23
Joshua
Hello,
I have been facing the same problem with all Microsoft Word versions. I figured out trial and error is the only solution however I'm still trying to find proper solution
2018-10-30 08:40:15
madhu
i've the same problem on mac. Every time the bottom margin is two lines wider than i've set up. pls help!!
2018-09-27 10:27:23
Elena
Just wanted to thank you as printing was right on 1 printer , but not on another.
This is what worked: "Another thing to check is the settings in the Print area of the Advanced options in the Word Options dialog box. For instance, if Allow A4/Letter Resizing is enabled, the output can appear different than what you see on-screen. "
Thanks again
2018-03-28 04:45:19
gildaweb
thank you,i could solve the problem by disabling two checks in options/advanced/print
1 - allow fieldes containing tracked....
2 - scale content for A4...
as u said
2018-03-07 12:33:17
Olive Cottyn
Using book fold and inside margins are not centering correctly. Even when they are all set to 2.54 cm and 0 gutter.
2017-12-30 08:23:31
Barry Tonning
I was having a weird big margin on one page of a 113 page document when I tried to save a MSWord doc in PDF. The problem page was a "Portrait" layout page, coming after a "Landscape" layout page. There was a 3 inch left margin on the page after the page layout change, but only on that page - the subsequent pages were fine. I changed the document view under the "Review" tab from "Simple Markup" to "Original," and that solved my problem! Thanks for this article!
2017-10-17 02:23:48
Faisal Rafique
Disabling "Scale content for A4 8.5x11" paper sizes" in MS Word 2013 -> Advanced -> print options resolved the problem, many Thanks.
2017-04-20 17:44:46
Ron R.
Many thanks go out to K Wetherell for helping me solve this problem.
2017-02-05 07:47:56
josh boniver bongot
still the problem exist.. what shoud i do?
2017-01-21 19:22:03
Sheila
I cannot print labels tho I have set the custom margins but it still prints as if on 8-1/2" w paper. I unchecked the A4 box but still prints the same.
2016-12-05 12:30:11
izzy
Nothing above or below of all the stuff listed "bleeds to the edge" ... it even says I am printing outside printable margin which is set to zero. And it still prints a margin though I choose to ignore the fix dialog.
2016-10-12 19:39:21
Richard
Was having the same problem.
Alexander Gray... thank you
2016-10-10 05:24:47
Sumit Garg
Disabling A4/Letter resizing option helped me, Thanks.
2016-10-09 04:22:58
Alexander Gray
File>Options>Advanced>Print section:
Uncheck (!!) "Scale content for A4 or 8.5x11" paper sizes"
*By doing the above procedure, your problem will be solve!
Thanks a lot! have a nice day
2016-09-02 11:28:33
Ted Duke
Aha! In Word 2016, it's in the Layout Tab, Page Setup Group. Click the drop down button beneath the Margins icon.then click Custom Margins at the bottom of the drop down list to get the Page Setup dialog.
Perhaps the software engineering department at Microsoft has annual contests to award a prize for the best hidden relocated options in their software. Apparently, that's the software equivalent of "musical chairs."
2016-09-01 15:37:26
Ned Barth
On Word 2016 in Windows 10:
File>Options>Advanced>Print section:
Uncheck (!!) "Scale content for A4 or 8.5x11" paper sizes"
That's it! This problem bedeviled me for over a year. Apparently it's a default setting for a new Office 2016 install. I figured this out when I saved the file as an Adobe PDF and the Adobe Printer dialog said it would print at 97%. When I reset it to 100%, it printed correctly, without the huge bottom margin.
2016-08-08 09:29:39
Robin F
There are two computers in my office. One computer allows the function of Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C to edit text. The other computer will only do it randomly and not very often. The only difference that I know of between the computers is the computer that allow the function every time will run Internet Explorer and the computer that will only allow it randomly does not run Internet Explorer.
2016-08-06 11:09:49
K Wetherell
Two other things to consider:
1) Make sure "widows and orphans" are turned off. (Paragraph | Line and Page Breaks | uncheck Widow/Orphan control)
2) Word does not use the base line of text to determine the bottom margin, but requires that the entire character fit above the set bottom margin; in other words if the tail of a "y" would extend past the set margin, that line is pushed to the next page. If the page layout in question requires a 1" bottom margin, try setting it for something slightly smaller.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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:
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