Problems related to page (paper) size settings in Microsoft Word
One of top 10 support calls we get is "my paper prints too large on the printer, cuts off parts of the document". Or, your printer will pause printing and prompt you to feed custom paper, or it would fail to print altogether, sometimes giving you a generic error. It depends on the type, model of the printer and printer software version. This is usually caused by improper page (paper) size selected or having custom page size selected
It's important to remember that page size is not a global setting in Word nor any other application. The page size, like the type of font used, is saved with the document. So some documents may have custom page size selected, some may not.
It's also important to remember that whoever created a Word document using custom page size most like did not realize that they were doing this, as most of the time there is really no good reason to do this. This is often caused by a really bad habit of "reusing" old documents. Instead of starting each document from a clean, default template people often delete the contents of old an document and save it as a new one. This is really, really bad thing to do: it often leads to document corruption and carries any problems the old document had to the new one, including wrong page size. By the way, this also applies to Power Point in which case reusing old documents is usually a recipe for disaster. A blank new document will have the proper default page size selected, unless you specified otherwise in Word preferences (most people don't), and the proper file format.
Finally, it's important to understand that changing the page size from a custom size to US Letter will affect the formatting of the document as it will shift lines, images, entire pages to fit within the new paper size.
How to check for proper page size...
Open the Microsoft Word document and go to the File menu and select Page Setup...
Please note that each program has its own Page Setup menu, so making changes in Excel or Firefox will not affect Word or Photoshop. In order to fix Word problem, you must be in Word, not in some other program, and you must have the affected Word document opened in the foreground.
Three things to pay attention to:
First, Paper Size must be set to US Letter.
Second, Scale must be set to 100%....
... and the third one is the one causing trouble, it's kind of hidden: click on the Settings: drop-down menu....
From the drop-down menu select Custom Paper Size, most people never see this one...
This is where the trouble usually is: if there is a page size specified other that 8.5" x 11" and the box is checked you will have hard time printing the document. You don't have to change the numbers, just uncheck the box, close the Page Setup window and save the document.
Remember, what I said in the beginning though: this will affect the document formatting, often drastically.
In some cases you may get away by using the Scale feature to scale the document to 90% or so, but it may not look right and this is just a one-time solution. If you plan to work on this document and print it several times or to send to someone else you should fix the page size permanently.
