David has his document formatted with a 1" margin on each side. However, when he is working in Print Layout view, he doesn't see the one-inch margin at the top of the page. Instead, his text starts right at the top of the page on the screen. When David prints the margins look OK, but it frustrates him that they don't look right on the screen.
The most likely cause of this is that you have whitespace suppressed on your display. Follow these steps to make the adjustment:
Figure 1. The display options of the Word Options dialog box.
There is a shortcut you can use to turn the display of whitespace on or off. In fact, the shortcut is easy enough that it is entirely possible to turn it off without even realizing that you've done so. (This is probably what happened in David's case.) All you need to do is scroll through your document until you see the small gray line between pages. If you position the mouse pointer over this gray line, it changes to a double-headed arrow. (See Figure 2.)
Figure 2. The double-headed arrow shortcut.
Double-click at that time, and your margins reappear. Double-click the gray area again and the margins disappear.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11850) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016.
Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!
Nonprinting characters are a great boon when you are editing a document. Turn them on and you can easily see what ...
Discover MoreIn an effort to make your writing better, Word uses "squiggly" underlines to mark things it thinks you may need to ...
Discover MoreThe Navigation pane can be a handy tool for, well, navigating through your document using the various headings that it ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2016-10-11 19:48:41
Amy
I turn the whitespace off frequently; always when I'm using a Word document on a projector or conference monitor -- that way, attendees can have a great view of the working document. Also really helpful to turn off the whitespace when working with tables that cross pages. This is one of the few shortcuts I've memorized! I do make a point to turn the whitespace back on before saving, so someone else opening the document isn't puzzled by how it looks.
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.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2021 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments