How to automatically change margins

[Cheryl]

Using Word 2008, Mac OS 10.4.11. I had a macro to change margins when
I was creating a pleading in Word 2004 but cannot create macros in
Word 2008. If someone creates a document that has the Normal
template margin settings, I would like to be able to press some
keystrokes and the margins are changed automatically. I've looked
around for the last couple hours that my brain in now mush. Any
suggestions? Thanks!

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Cheryl:

How about creating a new Template especially for that kind of document, with
the margins already set?

Changing margins in a document is not good working practice: it can corrupt
the document. It's better to avoid it if you can.

Just use File>Project Gallery to create a new document from your template,
that has the margins already set correctly.

Cheers

Using Word 2008, Mac OS 10.4.11. I had a macro to change margins when
I was creating a pleading in Word 2004 but cannot create macros in
Word 2008. If someone creates a document that has the Normal
template margin settings, I would like to be able to press some
keystrokes and the margins are changed automatically. I've looked
around for the last couple hours that my brain in now mush. Any
suggestions? Thanks!

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[ckuhn]

When the pleading is ready for final, I usually change the margins on the pleading. If I use the template, I would need to open the template, paste the guts of the pleading into the template and replace the old pleading with the new pleading. I could manually change the margins faster than going through a template. However, that could corrupt a document? Learn something new everyday, huh? If I'm trying to make a document, a letter for instance, fit on one page, I've played around with the margins or have used the shrink to fit option. Do you know how it corrupts the document?

Thanks for your suggestion. I'll work on a template and get used to doing it a new way. Change is good right?

Cheryl

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Cheryl:

It sounds like you learned your craft on WordPerfect

In WordPerfect, we used to adjust margins all the time, throughout the text.
But in WordPerfect, the "Margin" was simply a text indent, and it had little
effect on the rest of the document.

In Word, the margin is the fundamental reference point from which Word
measures everything. Changing the margin in an existing document is major
surgery. It's best to adopt a habit of getting the margin correct before
you add text to the document.

Changing the margin "shouldn't" corrupt the document ‹ it's a bug when it
happens. But it causes Word to instantly re-compute EVERYTHING in the
document: the position of every single character, line, box, space... All
gets recomputed.

Sometimes Word discovers during that process that there is something in the
document that simply "won't fit" and it loses the plot. I can't give you a
more scientific explanation than that!

But I have learned the hard way: "Don't change the margins, start with them
set the way you want to print them!"

If you build a Pleading Template, you can set the margins correctly before
you put any text in, and save the file as a .dotx.

Then when you want a pleading, double-click the template and type (or paste)
the content. No need to think about the formatting, it will all be correct!

Cheers

When the pleading is ready for final, I usually change the margins on the
pleading. If I use the template, I would need to open the template, paste the
guts of the pleading into the template and replace the old pleading with the
new pleading. I could manually change the margins faster than going through a
template. However, that could corrupt a document? Learn something new
everyday, huh? If I'm trying to make a document, a letter for instance, fit on
one page, I've played around with the margins or have used the shrink to fit
option. Do you know how it corrupts the document?

Thanks for your suggestion. I'll work on a template and get used to doing it a
new way. Change is good right?

Cheryl

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[ckuhn]

Worked with both WP and MS but mostly needing to put a normal margin on a pleading which the left side has a margin of 1.4. Thank you so much for explaining what Word does when margins are changed.

Cheryl