Seeeking help with MS Word 2003

[AlexanderBB]

Thanks for reading... after setting a custom page size (28cmx21cm) neither the print preview screen or main edit screen seem to reflect that size. Can I make them that size anyhow? Because I want to paste an image and see it's correctly positioned before printing.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Macropod]

Unless you monitor has a screen area somewhat larger than 28cmx21cm, Word can't display the whole page at 100% magnification. You can, of course, change the zoom factor to achieve whatever scaling you want. This doesn't affect the positioning of an image, though you can go as large as 500% for precision viewing.

 

[AlexanderBB]

Don't think I worded the question correctly. I meant what I can't reconcile what's on the screen with what will be on the paper. The rulers don't seem to represent the custom paper size. It's a bit of a fight with margins and gutters, but ideally they'd be zero and I can allow for them myself, I actually want to paste an image in and print that out, so no text as such.

 

[Macropod]

The rulers will scale in proportion to the page zoom. At 100%, you might expect them to be right, but life's not so simple. The reality is that Windows really doesn't know what size pixels your monitor uses and relies on the display driver to do the screen rendering, based on pixel counts and whatever size data the display driver can obtain from the screen. Consequently, you'd probably need to adjust the zoom percentage until the displayed paper height or width matches your paper height or width. On my monitor, for example, I'd need to use a 102% zoom to match the actual paper size.

Even after going to all that trouble, though, if you insert an image that fills the page on screen, you're unlikely to get a full-width bleed on the printout. That's because most printers have a non-printing area of around 5-6mm around the edges for paper handling.

 

[AlexanderBB]

Goodoo Paul. Actually today something has changed and Page Setup then View - Print Layout is giving more expected results.

Can I change what it uses as default margin size to what I'd like instead - and lock it in ?

Thanks, ABB

 

[Macropod]

You could start with a blank document, save the margins to whatever you require, then save that document as a new Word template (i.e. .dot file) in your templates folder. Then, whenever you want to create one of these picture documents, use that template instead of the 'Normal' one.

 

[AlexanderBB]

Blimey - it works! This has bugged me to death for about 15 years !

It was still a battle though as Word wouldn't overwrite 'Normal.dot" then after hunting it down buried deep in Documents & Settings
Word had to be closed first. But all makes sense now... many thanks.

PS if you're setting up for a booklet can you see all the pages or just one at a time ?

 

[Macropod]

It was still a battle though as Word wouldn't overwrite 'Normal.dot" then after hunting it down buried deep in Documents & Settings
Word had to be closed first. But all makes sense now... many thanks.

PS if you're setting up for a booklet can you see all the pages or just one at a time ?

It's probably not a good idea to replace Normal.dot with a template you don't want to be your default for all documents. That said, you could also have made the edits direct to the Normal template, if that's what you wanted, with none of the overwriting issues.

As for the number of pages to view, you could try changing your view zoom settings to increase the # pages on screen. You can decrease it to as low as 10%, but you wouldn't want to be editing anything at zooms anywhere near that small...

 

[AlexanderBB]

you could also have made the edits direct to the Normal template, if that's what you wanted, with none of the overwriting issues.

No doubt you're right but if you don't know how to - and it's not obvious - the ordinary user is never getting there !

As for the number of pages to view, you could try changing your view zoom settings to increase the # pages on screen.

Wonder if you have a different version of Word? Mines' 2003. I tried from 10% to 500% but only 1 page was showing. Before that (as per instructions via Google) I'd set Multiple pages to Book Fold and Sheets per booklet to 12. (Whatever Sheets are). Pages might be more useful (or perhaps that means pages?). Anyway only one showed up. Frustrating !! But I completed the job with paint Shop Pro. I'm sure Word should be able t do it though,

 

[Macropod]

For instructions on editing the Normal template, see: Change the Normal template (Normal.dot) - Word - Office.com

As for the zoom, Word 2003 on my system automatically displays two A4 portrait pages across (not full page height) when the zoom is reduced to 75% and continues adding pages as the zoom is decreased - by 25% it's showing 12 pages.