WD: "Margins Set Outside Printable Area of Page" in Word

Q187311

The information in this article applies to:

SYMPTOMS

If you set your document margins closer to the edge of the paper than your printer is capable of printing, Microsoft Word for Windows returns the following warning message for each copy you send to the printer.

Word versions 6.x, 7.x

One or more margins are set outside the printable area of the page.
Choose the Fix button to increase the appropriate margins.

Word 2.x

The margins of section <n> are set outside the printable area of the page.
Do you want to continue?


CAUSE

Most laser printers, such as the Hewlett-Packard (HP) LaserJet, cannot print closer to the edge of the paper than 0.25 inch. Some laser printers, such as the HP LaserJet Series II, require 0.5-inch margins. Most PostScript and dot-matrix printers have their own internal printer driver setting for margins.


WORKAROUND

Word 6.x, 7.x

In Word versions 6.x, 7.x the Print dialog box includes a Fix button. Clicking the Fix button increases any margin in the unprintable region to the minimum margin setting.

Word 2.x

To correct this problem, return to your document, and use the following steps:

  1. On the Format menu, click Page Setup. Increase any margins that are less than 0.25 inch.


  2. Click OK.

    NOTE: After you increase the margins, the message should not appear If the error message appears again, set the margins to 0.5 inch or larger.


PostScript

If you receive the warning message when you are printing to a PostScript printer, you may need to change the printer driver margin settings. To do this, use the following steps:

  1. On the File menu, click Print Setup. Select the PostScript printer, and click Setup. (In Word 6.0, click Printers in Control Panel.)


  2. Choose the Options button. In the Margins box, select None. Choose the OK button three times to return to the document



MORE INFORMATION

NOTE: Because there are several versions of Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, please consult your product documentation to complete these steps.

To determine what the document margins can be set to, start WordPad in Windows 95 (Windows Write in Windows 3.x) from the Accessories group, and follow these steps:

  1. On the Document menu, click Page Layout.


  2. Set one of the margins to zero (0) and Click OK.


Write will display a message box with the minimum margins.


REFERENCES

"Microsoft Word for Windows User's Guide," version 2.0, pages 122-123

"Microsoft Word for Windows Printer Guide," version 1.x, pages 8, 13

Additional query words: errmsg err msg

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Last Reviewed: November 8, 2000
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