How to Format a Document in Word Without Messing Up the Layout
Introduction
It can be both stressful and tricking formatting documents in Microsoft Word. Even more so when a change is made and it unexpectedly messes up your layout. It doesn’t matter what type of document you’re working on, a proposal, report, or workbook, maintaining a clean and professional format is vital.
In this post, I outline a step-by-step process, with a little bit of fun, to guide you through formatting your Word 365 documents without messing up your layout.
Step 1: Style Like You Mean It!
Minimise manual changes to documents by using Word 365’s inbuilt document styles to create major and minor level headings and keep them consistent.
If you were to look at your document, consider the following”
What would be the Main Heading – as in title of the document, report section etc
What would be the Sub Headings – ie secondary level headings such as Sales by Region Results, Sales by Staff Member etc
Are there any third level headings – for example, Sales by Region Results might have sub headings for Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Regions.
These are referred to as Heading1, Heading2 and Heading3 styles in Microsoft Word 365.
Heading1 = Title of Document
Heading2 = Sub Title or Headings – ie Sales by Region Results
Heading3 = Sub-Sub Title – ie Sales by Region for Northern
- To apply styles to the relevant headings in your document, click to place the cursor anywhere on the first heading
- Click on the Home tab.
- Apply the relevant style to the heading from the built-in styles for example Heading 1, Heading 2, and Normal for consistent formatting.
Note: The styles can be easily modified by changing the text, then right clicking on the style in the grouping and choosing Update heading to match selection.
Extra Note: If your organisation is a global brand or larger business, check to see if it has a brand or style guide that specifies how headings in a document should be formatted to align with corporate branding. Never just change the formatting of Word’s inbuild styles if the company you work in has a specific style guide!
Watch my how to video on Styles below
Step 2: Set the Foundation
Wherever possible, be sure to choose the right page layout and alter any margins BEFORE you start your document
By default, Word documents are set up to be portrait mode – think a page that is longer down than it is wide. If you need to change your document to landscape, which is wider and shorter:
From the Layout tab.
- Click the Margins drop arrow and select a preset margin or click custom margins to specify page margins.
- Change the page Orientation (Portrait or Landscape) and Size before you start adding content. Also note that paper size may vary depending on the country you are in, for example in Australia we use A4 pages but in the US Letter is often the standard format.
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See how to change the margins in the video below
Step 3: Maximize the Space!
Did you know that Word has different spacing layouts for paragraphs that can make it easier to read a document as well as make it look more spacious and less compressed or cluttered?
To change text spacing:
- Select the relevant text
- Click the small arrow in the bottom right corner of the Paragraph grouping on the Home tab.
- Use Line spacing, Before/After spacing, and Alignment instead of pressing Enter multiple times or having to centre or left align text manually.
Check out the video below on line spacing…
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Step 4: Page Breaks, Not Heartbreaks!
To start a new page, instead of pressing Enter, Enter, Enter until you get to the new page, do this instead:
- Position your cursor where you want to start a new page.
- Press Ctrl + Enter keys.
This starts a new page but also enables you to put text on either page by clicking to place the cursor before or after the page break.
Note: To “see” the Page Break, click the Show/Hid button (looks like a backwards P) in the Paragraph grouping on the Home Tab.
Want to see how to do it?
Check out this video below.
Step 5: Keep it together… use a Table
Word tables are an awesome way to keep your document layout consistent and professional. Everything lined up and great for content being presented side by side.
Tables can also be copied or cut and pasted by clicking the marker in the top left corner of the table – watch the video to see how
Try to not use tabs or spaces to align text by eye or manually as they often move when the document is edited.
- To insert a table, click where you want to insert it and from the Insert tab Choose Table.
- Select the desired number of columns and rows using the grid guide or clicking Insert Table to specify rows and columns that are uniform in width.
- Alternatively type in a + sign then some hyphens to represent spaces between each column and + sign to represent column break. Continue until you have set up all the columns with the desired widths making sure the last character is a + sign, then press Enter to insert a table with a single row. Press the Tab key from the last cell to add another row.
Watch the video below on Tables
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Step 6: Keep it Still and Fix that Pic!
If you are struggling with images that move about or shift as you add or change text in your document or report, try these out
- Click on the Image and a context sensitive Picture Format tab will display
- In the Arrange grouping click the drop arrow below Position and select a location for the image on the page. Hovering you mouse pointer over the option will give you a live preview of what each will look like. Just click to select the desired option.
- Click the drop arrow below Wrap Text and to get a live preview of each of the text wrapping option. Just click to select the desired option.
- Then choose Fix position on page to prevent it from moving with text.
And here’s the “how to” Pictures video
Step 7: Take a Break
Section breaks are a great idea to enable a document to have different headers, think things like book chapter titles, or to insert a landscape page into a portrait document when you need to insert some Excel data.
- Position the cursor where the break needs to go.
- From the Layout tab, choose Breaks, then Section Breaks.
- Choose the relevant option depending on your needs – for example, next page if you were starting a new chapter or wanting to insert a landscape page in the next section. Continuous could be used if you wanted to place data in the current page but perhaps wanted a section with two or three columns. (The default number of columns in a Word document is one between the two margins)
Check out Section Breaks below
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Step 8: Save it and Skip the Stress
If this is something you do regularly, instead of having to do the same thing every time, or worse, opening an old file, renaming it and editing it, consider creating a Word template where you can simply edit the relevant data each time you create the document.
Templates are useful for regular reports where the data in each section will change but there will still be images, a table and Excel data for example.
Here’s how to save it as a template to make it easy to reuse as a foundation document
- With the document that will be the template open, click the File tab and choose Save or Save a Copy (depending on if the file has already been saved)
- Click the drop arrow beside Word document and choose Word template
- Word will automatically navigate to the template area – DO NOT change the file location. 😊
- Name the file then click OK
- To create a new document based on this template, click the File Tab, Choose New. The template will appear in the Personal Group in the section below New.
- This should help make it easier to reuse the document format without the need to start from scratch each time.
Want to see how to do this?
Check out the video below
Summary
Don’t fly by the seat of your pants manually formatting your documents. Leverage Microsoft Word 365’s in built tools to avoid manual tweaks and format your document professionally and quickly without the frustration of layout issues. These are tips that will save you time and hours of frustration whilst helping you present your work with professionalism and confidence.
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