We recommend never making the left or right margins smaller than a half-inch, as text can get lost in the spine of the book after it’s bound.Īdditionally, depending on what you have in your headers and footers, you may want to make your top and bottom margins larger or smaller. If you want larger or smaller margins on the left and right, that’s okay. It is important to note that there’s flexibility in these values. Next, click the ‘Margins’ tab, click ‘Custom Margins’ at the bottom of the options, and change Top, Bottom, Left and Right margins to 0.75”. 5.5 x 8.5 is a common book printing choice that is easy to work with. Click on ‘Size’ and choose 5.83 x 8.26 inches for Macs. Create a New Document, and Click ‘Layout’ Mac:Ģ. Whether this is the case or you have yet to get started, you’ll need to open a brand-new Word document that you can copy and paste your text into for the best formatting results. When you originally typed your manuscript, you more than likely opened a blank Word document and went full steam ahead. If you’re operating on an older version, some of the prompts may be slightly different from what you see below. We’ll walk you through the steps to format your Word document for printing a book that is a 5.8” x 8.3” finished size on a Mac, or a 5.5” x 8.5” finished size on a PC.Įditor’s note: This tutorial uses settings and options from the latest version of Microsoft Word, for Mac or a PC.
