| | Word Processing : Page Layout | 
|
|
Computer printers will let you print word processed documents on several different sizes of paper. Most printers can use Letter and A4 size paper. Bigger printers will also print on A3 paper. Letter size paper is the standard in America and A4 is the standard in Europe.
It is important that the word processor is set to use the correct size of paper for your printer. This will ensure that all of your text will fit onto the page and that there will not be a large unused gap around the edge of the page.
You can print onto a piece of paper in one of two orientations, which are usually known as portrait and landscape. These two orientations look like this :
Sometimes portrait is known as tall and landscape is known as wide.
It is usual to leave a small gap between the writing on a page and the edge of the page. This gap is called a margin. Leaving a margin is especially important when you need to bind a document together. Even if you do not want to leave a margin you will probably have to. Most printers can not print right to the edge of the page.
You can normally set the size of the top, bottom, left and right margins separately by typing in the distance from the edge of the page to the text.
When writing a document containing many pages such as a report you may want the same information to appear at the top and bottom of each page. For example you may want the name of the document and your name to appear at the top of each page. You may want to print each page's number at the bottom of the pages.
Many word processors will let you type special codes which will automatically insert information such as the current date or current page number into the header or footer of a document.
A page can be divided up into a number of columns. This is particularly useful if you want to produce a newspaper, newsletter or a leaflet which will be folded.
GCSE ICT Companion 04 - (C) P Meakin 2004