🎄 ⛄ Ho ho ho! Happy holidays: $19 for All Courses

GoSkills
Help Sign up Share
Back to course

Paper Orientation and Size

Compact player layout Large player layout

Subscriber only lesson.

Sign up to this course to view this lesson.

View pricing

  • Lesson resourcesResources
  • Quick referenceReference
  • Transcript
  • Notes

About this lesson

Learn how to change paper size and orientation depending on the document type.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019.

Exercise files

Download the Word document used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Paper Orientation and Size.docx
981.1 KB

Quick reference

Paper Orientation and Size

Learn how to change paper size and orientation depending on the document type.

When to use

Changing the paper orientation from portrait to landscape occurs typically in large reports or manuals where an organizational chart or similar diagram may be added.  Changing paper size may matter depending on your profession, i.e. Legal or Executive correspondence.

Instructions

Two places to find Paper Orientation and Size settings:

places to find Paper Orientation and Size settings:

a. Page Layout Ribbon

b.  Print Preview screen (or Ctrl P)   

1. To change from Portrait to Orientation,  click Page Layout, Orientation, and choose one of the options:

2. To change the paper size, click Page Layout, Size:

3. If you have a special paper size, you can enter your own paper measurements; click “More Paper Sizes”:

Login to download
  • 00:05 In the lesson about paper orientation size,
  • 00:07 you basically need to know that there's two types of orientation.
  • 00:10 Again, this is on the layout ribbon.
  • 00:12 The orientation is portrait, which is the tall piece of paper.
  • 00:15 Landscape, which is a sideways piece of paper.
  • 00:18 Sometimes the only way to know when you're staring at your screen
  • 00:22 is you just look at your ruler.
  • 00:24 I can see that I've got six and a half inches of typing area with an inch on
  • 00:27 either end, six and a half plus two, that's eight and a half.
  • 00:32 Eight and a half by eleven is a letter piece of paper, so
  • 00:34 obviously this is portrait.
  • 00:36 So if I switch it to landscape, look what happens to my ruler.
  • 00:40 I've got nine inches of typing room, one each on either end, that's 11.
  • 00:43 So this is a sideways piece of paper.
  • 00:45 That's a quickest way at a glance to know if your orientation is correct or not.
  • 00:50 All right, so let's go ahead and switch this back to portrait orientation, and
  • 00:55 let me scroll down, so you can just actually see.
  • 00:58 I'm just pressing control and wheeling down to zoom down.
  • 01:01 So portrait and landscape.
  • 01:03 Now, landscape, it looks like this went into columns, but it didn't.
  • 01:06 Everything's just left aligned, but
  • 01:08 because it went sideways, it looks like it might be two columns, but it's not.
  • 01:12 Okay, going back to portrait,
  • 01:13 now let's talk about size, yhe size of the piece of paper.
  • 01:16 Letter is eight and a half by 11, legal eight and a half by 14.
  • 01:19 Watch what happens on the screen.
  • 01:21 Immediately, the ruler adjusted and the paper got quite long,
  • 01:26 eight and a half by 14.
  • 01:27 Now, look at this one, tabloid, 11 by 17.
  • 01:30 Look how long this piece of paper is, my word.
  • 01:34 So in this case, a tabloid, I'm actually going to go to landscape, and
  • 01:38 this would be a newsletter that would word-wrap into separate columns.
  • 01:42 I would fold it in half and distribute it.
  • 01:44 So that is why you would use tabloid.
  • 01:46 Okay, going back to portrait, going back to size, we have legal, we have executive.
  • 01:51 Executive is just slightly smaller than a letter-size, so
  • 01:54 if you are a corporate executive you have a smaller piece of stationary.
  • 01:58 I have no idea why, but you do.
  • 02:00 And let's see, one more.
  • 02:02 Let's just say, as you can see on my screen I've got a little tiny screenshot
  • 02:06 of some fancy stationary and a ruler, you can go out and buy your stationary.
  • 02:10 In this case, five and
  • 02:12 a half by seven inches, and that's just a screenshot of it.
  • 02:15 So I can go to size, go down to more paper sizes, and I can type in my own.
  • 02:21 So it was five and a half wide by seven inches tall.
  • 02:26 And at the very bottom, I could hit OK.
  • 02:29 And there we have perfect little pieces of paper.
  • 02:33 So now, it did word rap onto the second page, but that's fine.
  • 02:37 The trick, though is, look at your ruler.
  • 02:39 So I'm zooming in a little bit, and you can see the ruler.
  • 02:42 I've got three and a half inches of typing with one on each side.
  • 02:46 A spare for the margin.
  • 02:48 So, that's five and a half wide.
  • 02:50 And over on the ruler on the left,
  • 02:55 that's seven inches tall.
  • 03:00 So five and a half by seven.
  • 03:02 Of course, I would feed my stationary into my printer, hit print dash over there, and
  • 03:07 make sure it all printed out just fine.
  • 03:08 So, that is how we use orientation and paper size.
  • 03:12 Thank you.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Margins
3m:47s
Using Columns
4m:00s
Share this lesson and earn rewards Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp
Gift this course
Give feedback

How is your GoSkills experience?

I need help

Your feedback has been sent

Thank you

Back to the top

© 2019 GoSkills Ltd. Skills for career advancement