Thanks for your suggestions.
Yes the document looks ok in the Print Preview.
Yes there is a problem with the positioning of the paper in the printer.
However, I was not feeding the paper into the centre of the printer, since I
do not have paper guides coming in from both sides. My HP printer has you
align small paper to the right side of the paper tray. However the printing
would print in the middle as though Microsoft expected that I had guides on
both sides. So since the document printed in the middle and my small paper
was on the right side, half of the printing was on one side of the paper, the
other half was not on the paper at all.
So after I posted my question, I read many other postings to try to find a
solution.
First solution attempt: I went to Start, Printers & Faxes, Right clicked on
the printer, selected the layout tab in the print dialog box, selected user
defined paper size for the choice of paper size. Further I set the width and
height of paper at 5.5 and 8.5 respectively. At first that seemed to work
because, when I went back to the document I could choose the user defined
paper size at the printer dialog box and all was well. The only problem was
that then I had to go back and reset the paper to user defined 8.5 x 11 by
the first series of steps (start menu, printers & faxes, right-clicking on
the printer,etc). When I did not, other things such as an internet page came
out with only one side of the page printed. Therefore that meant I would have
to go to the printer from the start menu and be changing it back and forth
whenever I wanted to make a 5.5 x 8.5 document.
Solution Attempt #2
Next according to other suggestions I found, I navigated to Control Panel,
double-clicked Printers. On the File menu, I clicked Server Properties. In
that dialog box I Created a New Form sized 5.5 x 8.5. I saved it, exited and
went back to the document. The problem was that I could never get the form to
show up from within the paper size choices within Word.
Solution Attempt #3
I think this one, which I got an idea from another area of microsoft.com, is
the best as this seems to be working with the least headache. When I create
the document, within the Page Setup Dialog box and within the Paper tab, I
choose custom, set the settings at 5.5 width and 8.5 height. I also choose
under Paper source Auto for the first page and auto for the other pages
instead of the default settings of default tray(Auto). On my HP printer, the
Auto paper source is the setting used for envelopes that are printed through
a feeder on the right side of my printer. Apparently, that tells my printer
that I want to print on the far right (the same place I would print if I were
printing an envelope). Then I do not change the page size in the Print Dialog
box when I am printing. It remains at the 8 1/2 by 11 default setting. So far
this seems to be working well. I reopened the document I made and although
the Paper Source settings seem to have changed back to the defaults, my
document is still printing where it is supposed to on the paper.
