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Quick Answer

On the Layout tab, click Margins for a preset or Custom Margins for exact values, and Orientation to switch between portrait and landscape. Both apply to the whole document unless you change Apply to.

How to Change Margins and Page Orientation in Word ​

Applies to: Microsoft Word (Microsoft 365, Word 2021, Word 2019, Word 2016), Word for Mac, Word for the web
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-07-29

Summary ​

Margins, orientation, and paper size all live in the same corner of the Layout tab and all default to applying across the entire document. This article covers the two-click versions, and the part people actually get stuck on: rotating a single page to landscape without dragging the rest of the document round with it.

Prerequisites ​

  • Microsoft Word on Windows, Mac, or the web. Word for the web changes margins, orientation, and size for the whole document only — the single-page landscape method needs the desktop app.
  • Edit access to the document. Click Enable Editing if a Read-Only banner appears across the top.
  • No admin rights required.

Instructions ​

1. Change Margins with a Preset ​

Word ships six margin presets, and one of them covers most requirements.

  1. Click the Layout tab.
  2. In the Page Setup group at the far left, click Margins. A gallery drops down showing each preset with its measurements.
  3. Pick the one you need:
    • Normal — 1" on all four sides. Word's default.
    • Narrow — 0.5" all round. The standard choice for squeezing a document onto fewer pages.
    • Moderate — 1" top and bottom, 0.75" left and right.
    • Wide — 1" top and bottom, 2" left and right. Leaves room for handwritten notes.
    • Mirrored — inside 1.25", outside 1", for double-sided printing. Covered in Step 6.
  4. The gallery closes and the text re-flows across the whole document immediately.

Note: Once you have set custom margins, a Last Custom Setting entry appears at the very top of the gallery so you can reapply it without retyping the numbers.

Tip: The measurements show in inches or centimetres depending on your regional settings. To change the unit, click File > Options > Advanced, scroll to the Display section, and set Show measurements in units of.

2. Set Exact Margins with Custom Margins ​

When a submission rule specifies exact values, type them.

  1. Click Layout > Margins > Custom Margins at the bottom of the gallery. The Page Setup dialog opens on the Margins tab.
  2. Enter your values in the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right boxes. Type the number only — Word adds the unit.
  3. Leave Gutter at 0" unless the document will be bound. Gutter is extra space added on top of the margin to sit under a staple, comb, or spine.
  4. Check the Preview panel in the lower half of the dialog. The grey page redraws as you type.
  5. Confirm that Apply to at the bottom reads Whole document.
  6. Click OK.

Tip: Click Set As Default in the bottom-left corner of the dialog to make these margins the starting point for every new blank document. Word asks for confirmation because the change writes to the Normal.dotm template rather than to this file.

Note: Widening the page margins does nothing if the text is indented instead. If the paragraph still sits away from the edge, click in it and check Indentation on the Indents and Spacing tab of the Paragraph dialog, or drag the triangular markers on the horizontal ruler.

3. Switch Between Portrait and Landscape ​

Portrait is taller than it is wide; landscape is the reverse.

  1. Click the Layout tab.
  2. In the Page Setup group, click Orientation.
  3. Choose Portrait or Landscape. The menu closes and every page in the document rotates.

Word keeps your margin values when it rotates, so a page with a 1" top margin in portrait has a 1" top margin in landscape — which is now the long edge. Reopen Custom Margins if the proportions look wrong after rotating.

Verification: Look at the ruler across the top of the document window. In portrait on Letter paper it runs to about 8.5"; in landscape it runs to about 11".

4. Change the Paper Size ​

Paper size is separate from orientation and separate from margins.

  1. Click Layout > Size in the Page Setup group.
  2. Pick a size from the list — Letter 8.5" x 11", A4 21 cm x 29.7 cm, Legal 8.5" x 14", Tabloid, and others depending on the printer driver installed.
  3. Click More Paper Sizes at the bottom to open the Page Setup dialog on the Paper tab, where you can type a Width and Height for a non-standard size.
  4. Click OK. The page redraws and the text re-flows.

Note: The list of sizes comes from your default printer's driver, so it changes when you change default printer. If the size you need is missing, use More Paper Sizes and type the dimensions, or see How to Manage Default Printers and Print Settings on Windows to switch printers first.

5. Make One Page Landscape in a Portrait Document ​

This is the one worth learning. A wide table or a chart needs landscape; the other forty pages do not. Orientation belongs to a section, not a page, so the page you want to rotate has to become a section of its own.

The reliable method lets Word insert the section breaks for you:

  1. Select the content that belongs on the landscape page — the table, the chart, or the block of text. Select all of it, and nothing from the pages either side.
  2. Click the Layout tab.
  3. Click the small diagonal arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Page Setup group. The Page Setup dialog opens on the Margins tab.
  4. Under Orientation, click Landscape.
  5. Open the Apply to dropdown at the bottom of the dialog and choose Selected text.
  6. Click OK.

Word moves the selected content onto its own landscape page, inserting a section break above and below it automatically. The pages before and after stay portrait.

If you would rather place the breaks yourself:

  1. Click at the very start of the content you want on the landscape page.
  2. Click Layout > Breaks, and under Section Breaks click Next Page.
  3. Click at the very end of that content and insert a second Next Page section break the same way.
  4. Click anywhere inside the middle section.
  5. Click Layout > Orientation > Landscape. Only the section containing the cursor rotates.

Verification: Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 to show formatting marks. A double dotted line reading Section Break (Next Page) appears above and below the rotated page. The status bar at the bottom-left of the window reports which section the cursor is in when you right-click the status bar and select Section.

Note: Section breaks are the mechanism behind this, and deleting one merges the layouts back together. If a blank page shows up next to your landscape page, do not delete the break — see How to Delete a Blank Page in Word for the safe way to handle it.

Note: Headers, footers, and page numbers are also stored per section, so a new section can arrive with Link to Previous switched on and copy your header changes backwards. How to Add Page Numbers, Headers, and Footers in Word explains that button.

6. Use Mirror Margins for Double-Sided Printing ​

When a document is printed on both sides and bound, the binding edge alternates: left on odd pages, right on even pages. Fixed left and right margins put the binding space on the wrong side of half the sheets.

  1. Click Layout > Margins > Custom Margins.
  2. In the Pages section near the bottom of the Margins tab, open the Multiple pages dropdown and choose Mirror margins.
  3. The Left and Right boxes rename themselves to Inside and Outside.
  4. Set Inside larger than Outside — 1.25" inside and 1" outside is a common starting point.
  5. Add a Gutter value if the binding will eat into the page, for example 0.25" for a comb binding.
  6. Check the Preview panel. It now shows two facing pages rather than one.
  7. Click OK.

Tip: The Multiple pages dropdown also offers Book fold, which lays the document out as a folded booklet and reorders the pages for printing. It changes the paper handling completely, so test it on two sheets before sending a long document to the printer.

7. Apply a Change from This Point Forward ​

Sometimes the split is not a single page but "everything from here on" — appendices in landscape, or wider margins for the reference list.

  1. Click at the exact position where the new layout starts. Do not select anything.
  2. Click Layout, then the small diagonal arrow in the bottom-right of the Page Setup group.
  3. Set the margins, orientation, or paper size you want.
  4. Open the Apply to dropdown and choose This point forward.
  5. Click OK.

Word inserts a Next Page section break at the cursor and applies the settings to everything after it.

The Apply to dropdown offers different entries depending on what you did before opening the dialog:

  • Whole document — every page. The default in a single-section file.
  • This section — the section containing the cursor. Appears once the document has more than one section.
  • This point forward — from the cursor to the end, inserting a section break as it goes.
  • Selected text — the highlighted content, with section breaks inserted above and below. Appears only when text is selected.

Note: The same Apply to dropdown appears in the Columns dialog, and it is the reason a two-column newsletter block can sit inside an otherwise full-width document. How to Create Text Columns in Word covers the column presets, custom widths, and the breaks that keep them contained.

Verification: Open the Page Setup dialog again with the cursor in the older part of the document. The values read back as they were before your change, which confirms the two sections are genuinely independent.

Troubleshooting ​

WARNING

Deleting a section break merges two sections, and the text before the break inherits the page setup of the section after it. One keystroke can flip forty portrait pages to landscape. Press Ctrl + Z immediately if that happens, then work with the break rather than removing it.

Symptom / ErrorPotential CauseSolution
The whole document went landscape instead of one pageApply to was left on Whole documentPress Ctrl + Z to undo, then select the content first and set Apply to to Selected text (Step 5).
"One or more margins are set outside the printable area of the page"Margins narrower than the printer's unprintable borderClick Fix to have Word widen them to the driver's minimum. Click Ignore only if you know the content in that band is empty.
Text still runs close to the edge after widening marginsParagraph indents, not page marginsClick in the paragraph, open the Paragraph dialog, and reset Indentation to 0", or drag the ruler markers back.
Header vanished on the landscape pageNew section arrived with an unlinked headerDouble-click the header on that page and turn Link to Previous back on, or retype it — see How to Add Page Numbers, Headers, and Footers in Word.
Binding space is on the wrong side of alternate pagesFixed left and right margins on a double-sided documentSwitch Multiple pages to Mirror margins so the wide margin follows the binding edge (Step 6).
Margins show in centimetres and the guide says inchesRegional measurement unitClick File > Options > Advanced and set Show measurements in units of to Inches.
Orientation button changes everything even after adding breaksCursor is not inside the intended sectionClick inside the section first. Right-click the status bar and select Section to display which section the cursor is in.