Hi all! I've run into a really tricky margin issue and seem to have somehow completely broken my margins on Word.

I'm currently trying to format a PhD thesis, which is a few hundred pages. I'm required to have it on A4 size with 35mm gutter margins and 20mm margins for all the other sides. I wrote the document on Google Docs and uploaded it to Word for formatting as Docs does not support gutter margins.

I've set it to A4 size (it was originally on US letter size) and tried setting the lengths I needed in the custom margins setting, and selected mirrored margins so that the gutter margin would work. When doing this, Word inflated the gutter margin to a length significantly larger than 35mm, despite my setting it as such.

I have tried everything. I've messed around the with numbers in the custom margin setting, messed with every single setting that seemed relevant, and, most importantly, tried pasting all the text into a new document to start over. It's now the case that, whenever I create an entirely new document on Word, it automatically creates this inflated side margin. With mirroring, the inflated margin alternates sides; without mirroring, it's always on the left.

What might've caused this, particularly the impact on new documents that are separate from the one that had the original issue? Is there any way to get Word to actually adhere to the margins I'm trying to set?

Thanks in advance! :)

Can someone tell me the quickest way to add page numbers in Ms Word 2007 to all pages at once.

Whenever I try to add it either messes up and numbers only 9 pages at once

The table extends for 40 pages! Creating a Title Bar for every page isn't logical

H ey everyone,

I’ve proposed a feature on the Microsoft Feedback Portal to address a pain point we’ve all dealt with: shared documents becoming a "debugging exercise" rather than a writing exercise due to invisible formatting layers conflicting with each other.

If you agree this is a badly needed feature, please consider giving it an upvote on the official portal here: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/355f0b90-6697-f111-9b47-7c1e52444ef6

Word's layered formatting model allows page geometry, styles, direct paragraph formatting, and multilevel-list definitions to interact in ways that produce unintended layout glitches. While Word lets us inspect individual layers, there is no tool that shows the causal chain producing the final look of a paragraph.

The Solution Proposed: An Effective Formatting Inspector / Conflict Analyzer that maps out: Style → Direct Overrides → List-Level Formatting → Tabs → Resulting Position. It would flag redundancies and anomalous formatting without altering Word's core document model.

A Real-World Example:
I recently had to diagnose a 25-page legal document with a systematic half-inch layout shift. Margins and styles looked perfect. The culprit? A direct 0.5" paragraph override combined with multilevel-list formatting and 327 explicit 1.5" tab stops. Word obviously had the data to render it, but no native UI to expose that causal chain. I had to write a custom VBA routine just to find and purge the anomalous tabs.

Let's get Microsoft's attention on this! (And to any sub moderators/bots: This is a direct feature request/policy discussion, not a tech support or promo post).

Hi everyone!

I’ve noticed something with the Calibri font in Microsoft Word. When I type two lowercase “t” letters next to each other (tt), they don’t seem to have the same size/shape. The second “t” appears slightly larger and the two letters almost touch/overlap.

I haven’t noticed this with other fonts, so I’m wondering:

• Is this just a peculiarity of Calibri?
• Is there a setting in Word that can disable this behavior?
• Or is it some kind of font feature/ligature that can be turned off?

Also, what fonts would you recommend for documents that are comfortable and easy to read, similar to Calibri? I’m looking for something clean and professional, but not too formal or old-fashioned.

Thanks!

Folks,

I just had an office update (my Office Apps that were open last night were open this morning, but everything was reset to the start of the document), and ran into a strange issue. The Navigation pane was closed on all of my Word documents that had reopened, and when I opened it, in one document the text was an agreeable size, though smaller than the text on the Windows desktop (maybe 8 point). However, the text on the other was maybe half that size, and is unusable. Weirder yet, the word "Navigation" is the same size on both documents. (I tried to post an image, but this reddit appears to block those, which is less than useful.)

Can anyone point out how the update may have f^(ked up my app?

My word layout is A4. When I print to pdf the contents in word are shrinked and displayed in its pdf form.

I've been having these strange green bars show up in the middle of my word document, and I have no idea how to remove them. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi all. Got this from a pdf saved into work. Only i need the text but cant cut and paste from the picture box. Its driving me mad. Tried control v. Tried cut ans paste. But it won't work. Please help

Why do Microsoft make users have to do hundreds of extra unnecessary mouse and key board movements? By expanding the ribbon area you can't see a full page on an HD screen.
WTF?

Does anyone know if Office 2019 has had the ribbon bloated out in the same way?
Also - you if you have set up an Excel spread sheet to print optimize an A4 HD Display, you lose all the formatting as you have to scroll up and down to to see the cells.

Anyone know how to get my tables to stop merging??? turning wrapping off doesnt help

Hey everyone...

Not about the operation or usage of Word, but maybe someone can help me here with this one.

The pictured building has many opinions about it. One of them, which I can't understand, is that several people have said "This building makes me think of/reminds me of Microsoft Word".

Does anyone here see anything about that?

Hello! I tend to be pretty savvy with Microsoft Office, but I'm really struggling with this one.

So, I want to make a solid text block watermark. White background, thick black outline, 100% opaque, 0% transparency, cannot see the document body behind this solid text block.

What I'm doing is: Open Header, Insert > Insert Shape > Text Box. Shape fill, white (not no fill), shape solid fill transparency 0%, text solid line transparency 0%.

What I need is: for the watermark text box to be a big white block that blocks out part of the body of the page, that prompts to every page as part of the repeating header, and can be semi-conveniently copied into other documents as needed to overwrite several pages per document.

I've confirmed that this isn't just Word Doc's dimming effect, it prints like this as well. Is what I'm trying possible to do? Looking it up for the past 2.5 hours has gotten me nowhere. I'd really like to find out that I'm just stupid and blind, and that it's an easy fix that I've overlooked.

edit: specificity

Hello, I hope somebody may be able to understand what happened here and help me.

I’ve been writing a novel in Word, and when I reached about the middle of a chapter, I noticed that AutoSave was turned off. I always manually save my work anyway, and I also frequently make backups in Google Docs or export PDFs.

Long story short, I tried enabling the AutoSave feature. At first, I saw that it wouldn’t activate until I linked my account, which I then did. After that, everything seemed fine…

I continued manually saving my work and completed Chapter 3, then shut down for the day. Today, I opened the Word document and discovered that it had reverted to significantly before I had even finished Chapter 2. The AutoSave feature is also turned off again.
I must have manually saved the document at least 100 times between Chapters 2 and 3, so I have no idea how it could have reverted this far back.
Is there anything I can do to recover the missing work?

I’ve already checked Info > Manage Document > Recover Unsaved Documents, but it is completely empty.

Thank you for any help you can provide.
Take care,

- Jake

I JUST WANTED TO SAY, I TRIED EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING. I went into the temp thing and the auto recovery thing and I put in crazy codes (I have no idea I was watching different videos) and almost bought an app to recover my assessment for uni (due tomorrow night and I was actually working and cooking on it). Nothing was working. I was about to cry (I already started) because this was a pretty important assessment and I was pretty proud of my work. Then, I remembered that because my assignment was about researching using AI, I ragequit at copilot and copy pasted my entire document in the chat (apart from my personal details), and my chats are always like available. SO I FOUND ALL MY PROGRESS I FEEL BLESSED.

moral of the story: always enable autosave, don't use word on mac, make sure you're logged out of your high school account on one-drive/word, and lastly, remove sensitive information and copy paste your whole assignment into copilot so you will not lose it when eventually you don't save your work!

I actually have no idea what this community is for but I just wanted to share my experience that if you have NOT got autosave on, it is very very very likely you wont find your document ON A MAC. thank you.

I have to download this document for my online chemistry course and it's viewable by other people, I want to make my own copy but I can't save as? I also don't want to mess up the original document! How can I make my own? Thank you :)

Hello, I am using Word Online and I want to insert a picture from Onedrive.
I click Insert > Onedrive > I select the picture and click insert, but the picture is not added to the document.

I have tried several pictures like .jpg and .png but nothing works.

Anyone else having this issue aswell?

genuinely am i losing my mind? why does it do this? did i accidentally set it to another language?

Is there a way I can edit this document and input my answers?

I want the text to say CHAPTER ONE - The Journey Page 6. However, when I try to delete the automatic paragraph, it goes to The JourneyPage6. When I put a space between y and P it automatically puts it back to the next line.

Microsoft word for some reason decided that the ui language will be english. As you can see It's set for Portuguese, but despite restarting the app and my PC it still won't change. All other Microsoft office apps are in Portuguese, hoever Word has simply decided that it want to be set to english.

I can get it to look roughly like I want it if I mess around clicking and correcting semi-randomly, but there must be a better way to change this (I hope). I am trying to adjust the numbering in this document. I want the first two sections to have the same number as they are two parts of a whole, and differ from the rest of the instructions.

I want it to go 1A, 1B, 2, 3, 4, 5 rather than 1-6. I'm not looking to create separate levels, 1, then A, B, then 2, etc.

So in the shot you can see, the first 1 and 2 should be 1A and 1B, then 2, 3, 4, 5. The 1. in the heading in bold should also say 1A. The paragraphs below that heading should remain 1-5. Then the next heading below (not visible) should be 1B, not 2 as it is currently. I hope that's clear!?

I'm also considering swapping the numbers and letters around, so it's A1, A2, B, C etc, but I think I can handle that one myself!

I stupidly started writing my meeting notes with a client on a word document that hadn't been saved and was a temporary file.

My computer decided to shut down and reboot halfway through the meeting and it did not autorecover the document.

It was around 20 pages of meeting minute notes.....IT tried so hard to help me get it back but they said it's practically gone if I didn't have autosave on.

I know they are probably right but is there anything I can do :,(